Back when the delta was free, we never had to say “yes, sir” or bow down to anyone because we had a direct relationship with nature. Even if we came back empty-handed from fishing, we left the next morning with renewed hope. Just as vast as Allah is, so was the hope and the trust we placed in Him. The delta was a very rich region and the islands were no less than a paradise. The livestock was so abundant that when a boat would appear, local folk wouldn’t let it pass without gifting them milk, yoghurt and butter. Red rice was cultivated on the fertile island plains. My father tells me that in the creeks near these islands, there were so many fish that after having eaten, when we put our plates into the water to wash them, large schools of khagga (catfish) would swarm around them. On the islands, a type of seagrass called soowunn grew, which livestock would graze on all day long.

From these islands, a plentiful supply of desi ghee, red rice, butter and mangoes was brought by boat to the fishing village of Ibrahim Hyderi. From there, they were loaded on camel carts and transported to the city. When the fishermen went out to fish, all the household work and matters of joy or sorrow were managed by the women. They would make rilliyan (quilts), embroider, weave nets and gather firewood from the mangrove forests. When the fishermen returned, the women took over from unloading the catch, boiling and cleaning the prawns, cutting and cleaning fish to salting, drying and packing them in jute bags. They were paid for this work. The making of fishing nets was also a source of employment for women, providing a stable livelihood.

In this way, women worked side by side with men. People were healthy because they ate pure and nutritious food. Women worked through their pregnancies, but their health was never a major concern. In June and July, the sea would become very rough but by mid-August, the sea would return to its normal state. The monsoon rains would arrive on time and the seasons changed according to schedule. The sea was so clear that fish could be found along the shore. In those days, the Indus flowed into the sea in its full glory, reaching as far as Korangi and Phitti Creek – which is why fishermen from Ibrahim Hyderi and Rehri Goth still refer to the sea as the river.

Our destruction began when dams were built on the Indus, blocking its natural flow. The Indus’ final destination is the sea and according to both natural and international law, the people living at the end of the river, particularly the people of the delta, have the first right to its waters. The river’s water is very important for the ecology of the sea and the mangrove forests.

The waters of the Indus are strong and push the seawater away, leaving behind fertile soil that builds the land. They reduce the acidity of the sea and keep the sea’s temperature normal. Now, due to the absence of the river’s water, coastal erosion has swallowed up 4.2 million acres of land (some say it’s as much as 2.7 million acres).

In Pakistan, particularly in Sindh, the effects of climate change are the most severe on the coastal belt. Due to global climate change, not only has coastal erosion increased, but the sea level has also risen. The sea, which would return to its normal position in mid-August, now brings towering waves and high winds throughout September and October. We now only have two seasons (summer and winter), with a shorter winter and a longer summer. The fishing season, which previously lasted from August to November, has shrunk, as by the time the sea settles, the season is over. Rains are either scarce or excessive and untimely.

These changes have resulted in severe repercussions on the fishermen’s livelihoods as well as the environment. There is less employment and the increased acidity in the sea has affected the growth of the mangrove forests. Since fish nurseries are found in the roots of the mangrove forests, fish production has decreased, leading to a decline in employment. As sea levels have risen, most of the over 450 islands in the delta have been submerged. Women have been displaced from their traditional livelihoods, losing their culture. In the past, one person would earn enough to sustain the household, but now everyone has to work just to secure two meals a day. The fishermen try to sell all the fish they catch, as taking some home would affect the wages of other workers. As a result, food scarcity has become an unfortunate reality and proper nutrition is hard to come by.

The Indus is the lifeblood of Sindh. If the river’s natural flow is restored, coal, oil and gas-based power projects are abandoned, marine pollution is controlled and environmentally friendly energy sources are adopted, not only will the Indus Delta be revived but the effects of climate change can also be mitigated.

The destruction caused by the lack of river water and the impact of climate change can be gauged from the fact that we once proudly proclaimed that we lived in a land where the river flows into the sea. But now, with much pain, suffering and grief, we say that we live in a land where the sea flows into the river.

Fatima Majeed is an activist, social worker and Senior Vice-chairperson, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum. She was recently awarded the Tamgha-e-Karachi.

This piece was originally written in Urdu and translated to English by Ahmer Naqvi.

Keeping this alarming reality in mind, the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), in collaboration with partners such as Chevron, Dawlance, InfraZamin, Standard Chartered Bank, BASF, Unilever and Nestlé, among others, organised the second Pakistan Climate Conference on November 1, 2023.

Like its first iteration in 2022, the conference brought together global and local climate change experts, business leaders, policymakers and social activists who addressed the rising urgency of the climate crisis in Pakistan in order to come up with solutions that can effectively mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change in Pakistan.

The OICCI’s main objectives in organising the conference, stated Amir Paracha, President, OICCI, were “to galvanise our industry leaders and policymakers to stop talking and start acting, now. We have no time to waste – at this point, only cumulative and collective action will be effective in dealing with the crises that climate change has brought to Pakistan’s doorstep.”

Sidra Iqbal, conference curator, also stated that the conference aimed to serve as a platform which would “bring into cognisance the need for all involved stakeholders to work in tandem, or Pakistan’s climate crisis would continue to devastate the country and its people.”

Andrew Bailey, Co-Chair, OICCI and MD, BASF, emphasised that addressing climate change required leaders on both the local and global stages to work together in order to achieve results. In the same vein, Ahmed Shabbar, Founder and CEO, GarbageCAN, during another session, stressed the importance of climate education and allyship that stretches and covers Pakistan’s various economic sectors, public domains, and social strata, arguing that climate change affects everyone, everywhere, which is why, its solutions must also involve “everyone, everywhere.”

Another prominent thread running throughout the conference was the need to come up with long-term planning and policies which will tackle Pakistan’s climate change crisis in a sustained manner. Ambareen Thompson, CEO, SINA Health, Education, & Welfare Trust, talked about the economic and political upheaval the country regularly faces, stating that our policymakers must have long-term governance and aid plans laid out in order to efficiently address the effects of Pakistan’s climate crisis. Similarly, architect and researcher Marvi Mazhar spoke about how imperative it is for Pakistan’s public and private sectors to invest right now in infrastructure and aid efforts that are concretely planned out well in advance, instead of the country’s usual modus operandi of working reactively in a state of hyper-emergency when crises arise.

Muhammad Ali, Pakistan’s Minister of Energy, reiterated the need for a unified climate action plan for Pakistan: “Not only do we need to realise the urgency of our climate vulnerability, but the government, together with both local and global stakeholders, must also work on a three-tiered action plan to deal with climate change, by creating awareness, drafting policy, and executing said policy.”

Farhana Imtiaz, Founder and CEO of EcoClickk Integrated Solutions, a green technology start-up, was part of the audience and said that the conference was well-organised and a much-needed platform that brought together people who wanted to “take essential steps to lessen the impact of Pakistan’s climate crisis.”

Another attendee, Yusra Humayun, Internal Communications and Sustainability Specialist, National Foods Limited, appreciated the OICCI’s initiative in organising the conference, stating that such events are imperative in order to let businesses know that their customers are constantly checking to see what they are doing to mitigate their own impact on the environment, as well as how they are countering the challenges climate change poses in Pakistan.

The energy at the conference was urgent, goal-oriented and collaborative, with its organisers and speakers appearing well-informed and approachable. However, while the turnout was good, it meant that a number of the audience members had to attend part of the conference virtually from an adjoining room, despite being present at the venue. Nevertheless, it was encouraging to hear the conversations that took place there, as they emphasised a commitment towards addressing Pakistan’s climate crisis in an effective manner.

The brutal fact is that the average price for agency deliverables has declined by 50 to 70% in the last decade, depending on the type of agency service in question. That too, in a country where inflation is rising and includes the profits clients make, despite the so-called ‘difficult times’ and ‘squeeze on profits’. Yet, clients need to realise that agencies are running a business too and not an Edhi service for clients. As a result, agencies are taking action, as every action has an equal and opposite reaction – and in order to generate growing margins, agencies are cutting costs per deliverable at a rate higher than the 50 to 70% price decline. Here is what will happen and is already happening.

1. Downsize
Agencies used to hire with the intent of providing 24/7 services to clients – even if it sometimes meant reduced profits. They invested in highly-paid strategy, creative and account management people and they dedicated multiple teams to each brief, to focus, work, rework and rework until they got it right. However, with fees and commissions cut by clients, agencies have downsized and largely eliminated the number of teams assigned to creatives. This had the effect of reducing the high rate of rework, as fewer extra ideas are presented to clients. So if clients are complaining about why everything takes so long and deadlines are missed, they should know the reason why.

2. Juniorise
As rates continue to be slashed year-on-year, agencies will be left with no other choice but to ‘juniorise’, in order to maintain or grow their profit margins. Senior, and therefore more expensive, people have been let go in favour of hiring a mix of more junior people – a fact that will have an adverse effect both on quality and delivery timelines.

3. Freelancers
Agencies are compelled to work with freelancers more than ever before, as this enables them to pay for specific work rather than hire a full-time resource. However, the result is that clients are chasing agencies to deliver on time and agencies are chasing freelancers to deliver on time – causing further issues in the client-agency relationship.

The length of a client-agency relationship has decreased significantly compared to the long-term relationships that existed before, and the fact that new agency pitches have become more commonplace is because clients are not happy with their agencies and agencies are not happy with their clients. Overall, it is hard not to conclude that the pricing and profit pressures that are being put on agencies have led to deterioration in the agency’s capacity and capabilities.

For reasons best known to themselves, senior client executives do not routinely plan, document or negotiate their remuneration based on measuring the scope of work agencies are expected to deliver and the resources they need to do so smoothly. In too many cases, declining fees are set by clients and their procurement departments, based on statements such as: “It’s a global decision and is happening everywhere”, “We are cutting all costs, so this cost too has to be cut,” and in cases by a polite threat of “We will have to open up a pitch if you do not agree.” Then, with a gun pointed at their heads, the agencies agree, despite clients adding that the workload will grow throughout the year and the agencies better prepare for this without compromising on the quality or delaying the delivery. However, agencies no longer hold to the attitude of: “We are great service providers and will do whatever our clients require.” Instead, their attitude is: “You will get what you deserve,” and “If you pay peanuts, you will have to hire monkeys to do your work, not agencies.”

This situation is becoming worse and will have catastrophic implications on the client-agency relationships in the future.

Shoaib Qureshy is Managing Director, Bulls Eye DDB Group. shoaib@be.com.pk

Today, advertising agencies have evolved and often call themselves brand experience agencies. One of the reasons why this has come about is because audiences are evolving; we are no longer dealing with people inclined to believe a message just because they see it on TV, rather with smart consumers who prefer to get to know brands before they will consider them.

Brand Experiences Don’t Communicate; They Connect

Brand experiences are about developing sensory experiences that entice people into a lasting and meaningful relationship with a brand. Initially, the term brand experience was used to refer to experiential marketing limited to on-ground activation or events, today the term entails much more – for example this communication by BBC Media Action about the refugee crisis:

When we develop integrated advertising campaigns, we think of all the channels that will bring our big idea to life while communicating the core message. However, with digital platforms and their greater possibilities, there is more to advertising than communicating simple messages – it is about making those messages mean something to people through immersive activities, whether on-ground, digital or by taking an integrated approach. It is about ideas that don’t just say, but rather do something for audiences. Conventional creative messaging and placement have become old-school, and to win consumer attention and trust one has to do more for them. Rather than develop advertising campaigns with a beginning, a middle and an end to reinforce a message, marketers must think about advertising as a rewarding and sustainable presence in consumers’ lives. Burger King build their consumer experiences by engaging them in the communication process – such as their Burn that Ad campaign, where they asked people to virtually burn McDonald's ads in exchange for a free Whopper.

Developing Brands at the Speed of Culture

Brands connect better with audiences by leveraging the power of culture through valuable and actionable insights while offering them opportunities to not only listen, but express themselves and achieve a sense of belonging with the brand. An effective way to integrate the brand into the lives of consumers is by building human experiences within four different spheres and integrating them in the execution.

Public Sphere: This is when advertising is presented to people when they are moving from one point or activity to another and are ready for new inputs, such as viewing relevant ads on a website within the context of the information they are looking for.

Social Sphere: This sphere allows people to build new connections or strengthen existing ones. People have an inherent urge to connect with others and brands can leverage this by building experiences that help fulfil social desires, thereby facilitating interaction in innovative ways.

Tribal Sphere: People like connecting with people who think alike. Brands that share a specific belief or lifestyle tend to connect better with specific groups of people (their target audience). This is most associated with cult brand building.

Psychological Sphere: Brands in this sphere tend to use language, cognition, emotion and other psychological cues to engage consumers. Almost all advertising operates here in one way or the other, with the common objective of inspiring action or triggering positive feelings.

Nike, for example, use all four spheres through an integrated approach in order to enable people to connect with the brand at a deeper level, resulting in a cult following. The fact that the brand shows true purpose, coupled with their product offering makes them attractive to people. From developing a platform for runners to connect, to standing up for what is right and urging people to do the same, we can learn how Nike have built their brand experience, rather than by simply advertising. Red Bull is another example. They not only rose to prominence by sponsoring alternative athletes and lifestyles, they went further by creating their own events and created a niche in the energy drinks category.

Experiences are the New Advertising

Building experiences is the new way to engage consumers; by creating shared value and offering them the opportunity to connect with the brand by joining in activities that trigger their emotions and help them build meaningful relationships. Whether it is in an opera house or on a website, people need to feel the same sensory experience from brands they would when a maestro waves his baton.

This article has received the WPP Atticus ‘Highly Commended’ position globally in the Brand Experience category for the WPP Atticus Awards 2021. The article has been honoured with a full inclusion in the global WPP Attticus Journal vol. 26. – The WPP Atticus Awards recognises the best in original and published thought leadership on the issues and trends shaping the advertising industry, business and society globally.

Talking to Aurora, Humayun Farooq, Marketing Director, Reckitt Pakistan, says, “In our quest to protect Pakistani consumers by using relevant and innovative ideas under the platform of HSP, our agency partners BBDO Pakistan came up with the idea of social distancing prayer mats for Dettol to ensure safety and cleanliness, especially during the current Covid-19 fourth wave.”

The prayer mats were launched a week prior to Eid-ul-Azha to ensure their availability for Eid namaz, one of the largest congregational prayers in the year and during which mosques are crowded.

Atiya Zaidi, MD & ECD, BBDO Pakistan, says with the fourth wave and a new variant, the health of Pakistanis is even more at risk and given the fact that Dettol has been at the forefront of the pandemic all along, it was crucial for Reckitt to reinforce the message about following all SOPs on Eid-ul Azha. “We built on the insight that a huge risk factor during Eid are congregational prayers because of the proximity of those praying side by side. People, of course, prefer to offer their prayers in a mosque especially on Eid, so how could we encourage them to keep their distance for their own safety?”

The typical prayer mat Muslims use is typically 27 inches wide or less. Dettol introduced a prayer mat that has a width of about 84 inches (seven feet). Each mat is for a single person and comes with a mehrab design in the centre where the person can stand and pray and the words ‘Yeh Fasla Behtari Ka Fasla Hai’ (this distance is for our betterment) printed on either side on a green background.

Although Reckitt experimented with different materials, such cotton or other fabric or even recycled plastic sheets, they finally opted to print on sustainable paper, heavy enough to be reused. Relying on the insight that mats are revered and respected and well taken care of, the company believes a single mat can last for a few months if stored and handled properly. “Our learning will tell us if we need to tweak the material or design for future print runs,” adds Farooq.

The prayer mats were distributed in several mosques in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad,
as their numbers were limited. The cost of printing and distributing them came to Rs 2,000 per mat, but says Farooq, “these costs will decrease as demand increases.”

Dettol’s Social Distancing Prayer Mats are available on Daraz for Rs 755. Reckitt are hopeful that people everywhere in Pakistan will start taking them to their mosque – and hopefully inspire others to use them and thereby keep themselves safe – and to this end, they are working on uploading printable files on their website that can be downloaded and printed. “We purposely did not brand the mats as the objective is to ensure safety, not advertising,” says Farooq.

With the onset of the pandemic, HSP – an initiative which aims to educate Pakistanis on the virtues and benefits of cleanliness – has added safety and precaution in their communication objectives. According to Zaidi, Dettol is a brand that has proven once more that optimism serves a higher purpose than fear-mongering, especially during a pandemic. “After the March 23 campaign #YehWatanHumaraHai and the #SocialDistancingPrayerMat, expect a lot of exciting projects coming out of the pipeline!” she concludes.

Not so fast. A few days later, my “track and trace” app told me to self-isolate for seven days: I had “contact” with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19 at the conference. I guess you could call this a “disruptive tech” experience – just not the one I had in mind.

The Story Matters As Much as Ever

Sir Martin Sorrell opened the conference sporting his relaxed, “very digital these days” look. His new company – S4C – is “a digital pure play” he tells us and so much better placed for future profits and growth than the old-style holding companies (like WPP which he used to run) encumbered by their ‘old media’ investments. Sir Martin has always been good at this kind of storytelling. Since nobody knows about the future, a good story is one way to show that you are on the right side of progress. Yet, his story does not bear too much analysis – as was evident from other speakers at the festival. Most media are digital now. Even posters – that most ancient of ‘old media’ – is in fact delivered digitally as ‘digital out of home’. Also, the creative product, which we used to regard as an old media craft, is now being developed with AI assistance. This is especially true when large volumes of response-type advertising is being developed and optimised in real time. But still, it’s his story and if he tells it often enough in the right places he will win the perception game – and boost the value of his company.

Existing Trends Speeded Up

Sir Martin’s other message was that the pandemic has simply speeded up trends towards a digital future. This was on display throughout the conference – with one stage dedicated to the stream of start-up pitches. Adtech companies tend to use mind numbing jargon to pitch their offer. Using my ready reckoner tech speak translation app I can boil it down to better and more accountable opportunities to reach the right audience; when that audience is open to communication; with something (content/ad/offer/experience/entertainment) that is relevant and motivating; to deliver a campaign is efficient, cost effective and delivers a return on investment

The principles of effective campaigning don’t change (they rarely do) but the practice is transforming rapidly. So, is there anything fundamentally different going on? Yes. To use jargon there is ‘business model innovation on digital platforms.’

Translation: Content creators are getting their just deserts (at last). The likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram used to get their content for free (pretty much). User generated content filled up their platforms – and the big platforms milked it for ad revenue. The creators got a bum deal. Of course, they did. Creators were many (and disorganised). Think of them as the Uber drivers of the web. The platforms were few and controlled all the eyeballs. But power has been shifting. The Economist explains “The serfs tilling the internet are increasingly finding that their output can command a price”. The most famous YouTubers, Instagrammers, Tok Tokkers and Twichers have huge followings as well as agents (and other professional advisors) who can help them get more value from and produce better content.

New platforms now offer content creators a much better deal – such as Onlyfans (video), Substack (newsletters) and Twitch (gamers). The big platforms have had to respond and offer both a better deal and more services to content creators. Failure to do so would have resulted in them becoming mere ‘promotional platforms’ used by creators to drive traffic elsewhere, where they can earn more. The creator economy is transforming – and the fuel is money, creativity and professionalisation.

Content Creators Become Entrepreneurs

What does this mean for marketers? Content creators are, increasingly, media entrepreneurs. They are more professional, more reliable and with considerable reach and influence – more likely partners for all manner of deals such as recommendations, co-creation, offers, as well as data sharing. This growing world of content creators is an opportunity for long lasting partnerships than advertising. Try googling ‘partner with content creators’ to see what I mean.

The daddy is Google with its YouTube platform, who explain the benefits: “Tap into loyal audiences by partnering with YouTube creators. Define the scope of your collaboration with a clear creative brief. Use creators’ relationships with fans to share your message with hard-to-reach viewers.” This was the kind of work I was doing at Google when I worked there five years ago. Today, there are excellent content creators on many platforms and adtech’ start-ups that will help you find and work with the right ones.

Clues to Success in Partnering with Content Creators

What did I learn at Google about finding the right partnerships? Here are key planning questions: 1) What are my brand values and which content creators align with them? 2) What are my audiences’ passions and what content creators are they loyal to? 3) What partnership with a given content creator would be mutually beneficial and flourish over time? In other words, don’t just look for quick results. The consequence will be short transactional relationships. (If you want quick results use online advertising. MAD//fest was packed with Adtech – AI fuelled of course –that promised better targeting, better creative and better results. The growth of adblocking – supercharged by Apple – is improving the quality of online advertising too.)

Content Creator Partnerships in Practice

A personal example. I am a history nerd and a loyal listener to several history podcasts. My favourite is “The rest is history”. One of the hosts – Tom Holland – also regularly delivers an explanation of a new service that offers individual mental health support via online counselling. Tom Holland is happy to recommend and support the new service because he too has suffered from stress. It feels like a symbiotic partnership rather than merely a paid for recommendation, which makes it more convincing. This maturing content creator economy will stimulate all manner of niche opportunities for new products and services in partnership with content creators. It is also a way for big brands to get closer to their customers through their passions and interests. Time to experiment for your brand, perhaps?

Julian Saunders is Founder, The Joined Up Company and former CEO, Red Cell (a WPP creative agency) and Head of Strategy, McCann-Erickson. julian@joinedupcompany.com

Volkswagen (it means ‘the people’s car’ in German), make another product: sausages. Called the Volkswagen Currywurst, it even has a VW part number! The ketchup served alongside is made by VW too. Toyota make homes, yes! Entire townships in fact. Toyota Housing, established almost four decades ago, has built over 100,000 homes and apartments in Japan alone. They are now building in Indonesia. Wish they would come here too. That would put all our low-quality builders out of business! Honda, the makers of iconic motorcycles and cars, also make business jets, All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), lawnmowers, pumps and many other petrol powered items of everyday use. In the meantime, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes Benz have all collaborated on speedboat design, although inevitably it is a niche market and not enough to keep them afloat. However, the speedboats certainly do wonders for their images. Other joint ventures bring in revenue. Luxury clothing, watches (remember the IWC wristwatches by Porsche?), furniture, bicycle design, even high-end beers and wines. So the next time you think cars, remember that you are looking at a vast network of products and services.

Many of the larger car manufacturers overseas provide hire, purchase, leasing and even rental agreements, and hopefully these services will come to Pakistan eventually. So, if the prospect of buying a vehicle daunts you, you will no longer need to. You will be able to lease a car and trade it in every few years and acquire a newer model in the process. What is more, you will not need to worry about selling, depreciation and all the paperwork. With no ‘ownership’, even your tax returns may look better.

Back to cars. Mercedes Benz, Porsche, VW and even Nissan, realising the loyalty potential of offering factory spec restoration of their older classics, have been offering factory quality upgrades and restoration for some years. As the prices of post-WW II classics skyrocketed, even VW’s microbuses, vans and buses now command six figure prices in dollars, making this a very profitable segment to corner. Mechanical and passenger compartment upgrades apart, you can even go for all electric propulsion. Ever wanted a classic Rolls-Royce without the petrol bills? Now you can. Check out Lunaz’s website –www.lunaz.design – they are ‘electrifying’ classic cars – so if you have a 50-year-old Rolls-Royce, they can make it run like a Tesla.

Carmakers also like to be seen as more than just providers of transport. Witness Mercedes Benz’s state-of-the-art, multipurpose stadium in Atlanta, or the Super Dome in New Orleans. Sports, entertainment, dining facilities, bars, all in one place. If that doesn’t scream product loyalty and brand recognition, well… The company that coined the slogan, ‘Engineered Like No Other Car In The World’, have just engineered their way into the mind of every sports fan in the USA and you really cannot put a price on that.

Romano Karim Yusuf is a vintage car enthusiast. romanokarim@gmail.com

Advertisers and marketers know this, yet recently, they have taken to pretending they don’t. This is why, in an ironic twist, many Ramzan campaigns don’t highlight the month; rather they present lush productions designed to evoke the ‘inner good human’ inside us – nothing to do with the holy month, we promise!

As with all insincere efforts, jaded viewers (such as yours truly) can see through these campaigns for what they really are: awkward product placement efforts within mini soap operas. Furthermore, advertisers need to realise the value of balance: many of these ads are so overwrought, they become burdensome, especially on the frayed nerves and weakened powers of reasoning of a fasting nation.

Take, for example, the campaign for a leading biscuit. The ad starts with that most overused of tropes: a Sufi singer singing in the street. The street, by the way is, as usual, decorated like a Valima ceremony. The protagonist appears on the balcony holding a cup of tea. He listens to the singer’s platitudes of gratitude to the Almighty and tears up. As the singer continues, he goes inside and sees his family who are busy going about their business, but a single sight of the biscuit in question causes them to gather together, laugh pointlessly and of course, consume the biscuit in a most unnatural manner.

The first problem with this ad is the tone. The song is well composed and sung, but it is jarring and too loud and the whole act is overdone. Together, these two factors make the ad a pain to watch, despite the best of intentions. It also fails to highlight any unique merit of the product, except that people like to eat it. It could have been anything – a brand of oil, tea, or even cola.

Speaking of colas. Coca-Cola is running a campaign which is simple and elegant. It shows different people around the world connecting over a bottle of Coke. It is a message of inclusivity and unity. My only issues are (a) people exchanging heaped platters of food at iftar which is in jarring contrast to the message of the ad and (b) the muted colour palette which lends the ad an overdose of pretentiousness.

Another interesting ad doing the rounds is Surf Excel. It shows a group of orphaned children visiting an old-people’s home, enjoying a day of fun. As the children leave, the head of the old people’s home suggest that since both groups have lost their loved ones, they would be happier being together. The in-charge of the children nods solemnly and thus, a union violating a thousand child protection laws is cheerfully cemented.

The ad takes a refreshing approach in conveying vital information through visual cues. If only it was not sanctimonious to the extent of being depressing: the elderly men and women have long faces even when the children are playing with them. Even the children cheering as they return to mingle with the seniors takes on a superficial quality against the cloying seriousness of the ad. The direction is right, but Ramzan does not mean a month of crying. Certainly one may cry while praying – but nobody wants to cry while watching TV. The ad makers should lighten up a bit.

Talha bin Hamid is an accountant by day and an opinionated observer of pop culture, an avid reader, a gamer and an all-around nerd by night. talhamid@gmail.com

If there is one major advancement in the industry recently due to a focus on award shows, it is that this behavioural mindset is now considered as ancient as asking your agency to use a tape cassette to record audio. It is now more or less accepted that an effective, creative campaign that brings real business results wins big awards: a campaign that wins an accolade wins confirmation from the industry that the agency and brand know how to build effective marketing. If you have an argument with that, bring it up with Nike.

Award...

The dirty five-letter word that used to strike fear in many a brand manager’s heart is no longer considered BP-raising. It is now actively a positive word, and is now pursued rather than avoided, mostly due to the understanding brought about by a couple of important factors in the last six years or so.

One of them is the recent abundance of never-won-before international awards obtained by Pakistan (mostly by BBDO) that has catapulted the country into global fame and has sent a clear message to those who thought it would never be possible: it is possible. The second very powerful influence has been the contribution of PAS in transforming the country’s mentality towards winning awards.

With the evolution of the previous PAS Awards to the highly effectiveness-focused and globally recognised Effie Awards, the Society, in one masterstroke, has pushed forth a new way to not only approach the idea of winning awards, but also the work itself.

Despite resistance in the beginning from conventional ad agencies, PAS bravely pressed forward to introduce a tougher standard through the Effies, with a much more elaborate entry procedure, one that over time all agencies have eventually adapted to and in fact, have learnt from. We now see a marked improvement in the way agencies craft their entry forms, giving the practice the due importance it requires. Case studies look composed now, designed for jury viewing. Entries to the award show have risen year-on-year steadily, despite an increase in fees, proving a growing trend of acceptance.

What is perhaps most refreshing to note is the breadth of brands and companies participating: this is by no means the realm of the mega-corporation and even smaller ‘Davids’ send in their creative best against the Goliaths in the industry – in fact, there is even a category specifically designed to cater to this particular micro-contest. Last year, a challenger brand such as Cheetay.pk managed to pick up a highly coveted Effie Gold. The message is getting through: if your work is good, it doesn’t matter how big or small you or your campaign are.

The introduction of foreign jury members to judge the work has also meant that a higher standard has been established. Industry professionals who have judged in global shows are more discerning, ensuring that the best work makes its way through. Initial protests resulting from fear that foreign jury members would not ‘understand’ Pakistani culture were ceremoniously brushed aside with the fact that a show like APAC Effies covers about a dozen different cultures, ranging from India to Japan to Australia and it works out just fine.

Award shows are not just to massage egos: their biggest purpose is to make an agency’s work better. The more an agency or brand competes against the best, the more they are likely to improve their work. This is perhaps the most misunderstood point about the value of award shows. For an agency, their only asset is the talent they employ, so why wouldn’t you want to make them better at what they do? For a brand, why wouldn’t you want your work to be determined as better than your competitor, or for your agency to make the best work possible? This is what an award show does: it makes these things better. And not by the agency’s own standards – by the standards of a group of industry professionals.

What the Effies have also brought about is a much more robust sense of measurement. How we define success and how well our campaigns have performed are now monitored even closer, and the mindset that your creative work has to perform allows a team from the onset to develop something that is designed to perform stronger. What the goals are, are now connected much more powerfully to what the objectives were, setting out.

As we all know in marketing, competition is healthy for any category. It is a tide that raises all boats. By introducing accolades such as Brand of the Year, the Effies have also pushed brands to make more effective work in order to win that accolade.

The fame for agencies and brands has been a business-generating device: brands want to work with agencies which create more effective work. Talent also wants to work with agencies that win, creating the kind of work that brings in more business. A fabulous win-win loop.

Much needed for our nation, purposeful work also gets a boost through award shows, urging brands to utilise their power in order to create work that strengthens the responsible link between purchase and purpose.

A few years ago, while at Cannes Lions, I received a call from Saqib Zia, who was heading PAS at the time, saying that Traci Alford, the newly appointed President and CEO of Effie Worldwide, wanted to meet and discuss why it would be a good idea for Effies to venture into Pakistan. Over tea, I pointed out to her that as it stood, the fragmented industry in Pakistan needed help to bring it together in a unified desire to create stronger, more effective work that wins awards and an international brand like Effie just might be able to do it.

In just a few years’ time, Qamar Abbas and his team at PAS have done just that; in the process making Pakistan Effies one of the most successful programmes in the Effie Worldwide roster, even earning a seat on the Global Effie Council (of the 57 programmes worldwide, there are only 12 seat invites and Pakistan is now one of them). What a proud moment for the country.

Perhaps PAS’ greatest legacy of introducing the Effies to Pakistan will be that a most important question was finally answered: yes, there is tremendous business value in entering and winning award shows. If you’re entering award shows, guess what, you are working for awards. Which now, finally and thankfully, is deemed a good thing. Look at the entry list and you will see that most agencies and brands in the country are now craving for their work to be the kind that wins another kind of Five Letter Word.

Effie...

Ali Rez is Regional ECD, Middle East and Pakistan, BBDO Worldwide. He is an 11-time Cannes Lions winner and has won the Effie Grand Prix twice in two years. a.rez@impactbbdo.ae

It is an honour to be writing about PAS on the occasion of their 25th anniversary. I have been an active member of the forum for the past three years and am very proud of some of the work they have done. Over the years, PAS has several achievements to its credit. These include successfully liaising with PEMRA and other government bodies on behalf of advertisers, negotiating between channels and agencies, mediating conflicts between competing organisations and playing a critical role in introducing People Meters and thus serving as the only forum in Pakistan which serves as the face of the industry.

However, in my opinion, one of their landmark achievements is undoubtedly bringing the Effies to Pakistan. As everyone in the advertising industry knows, the Effies are perhaps the Oscars of the marketing industry globally.

Before the Effies came to Pakistan in 2019, PAS organised their own awards which became the benchmark for excellence in terms of creativity and effectiveness. However, the Effies changed the horizon from local to global. Our agencies and creatives are now suddenly pitched against a global pool and this gives Pakistan much needed attention. This is because every Gold, Silver, Bronze and Effie Grand Prix winner becomes part of the Effie’s Global Index and are entered into the APAC (Asia Pacific) Effie Awards.

Ultimately, the Effies are a huge asset for our industry. Winning an Effie means that your peers are commending your work and there is no feeling better than winning one.

In order to ensure that every participant has a fair chance of winning, PAS regularly organises training sessions on how advertisers should position their entry cases. The template is the same as the one used globally. These training sessions are held for all marketing and advertising professionals and are conducted by experienced marketers from the industry. However, I do feel that despite PAS’s efforts in the last few years, the cases received are still not up to mark. There needs to be more rigour put into the process by the organisations that want to compete. However, as is true for every award, there are always naysayers in any industry, who complain that the Effies are not ‘fair’. Yet, in my opinion, no stone is left unturned to ensure that the awards are fair and transparent. For this, several layers of vigilance have been put in place to ensure this and I will talk about a few aspects here.

A Rigorous Judging Process

There are three judging rounds. The first round screens and shortlists all cases for the final round. In the second round the shortlisted entries compete for the award level i.e. Gold, Silver and Bronze. All the Gold winners then are evaluated in the third round by the Grand Jury for the Effie Grand Prix, which is the best of the best. There is a minimum qualifying score that is required by an entry to move to the next round or for any award level. It is also important to note that in any round if a jury member is from the same company or category the entry is, they are asked to recuse themselves to ensure that there is no bias.

An Unbiased Jury

Every year, when the members of the jury are announced, a lot of industry professionals who have not been chosen opt to ‘mark themselves safe’ on social media; however, the simple fact of the matter is that the number of jury members is directly proportionate to the number of entries. For example, when PAS initially introduced the PAS Awards, they received on average 100 entries and the number of jury members was approximately 50. As the number of entries has increased to nearly 300, at least 150 jury members are required to ensure a transparent judging process. Furthermore, jury members are not selected on the basis of whether the organisation they belong to is a local or a multinational company, a large or a small agency; they are selected on the quality of the body of work they have produced, and most of them have been in the industry for at least seven to eight years. Additionally, people from different professional spheres, be it marketing, advertising, academia or media are included to provide a diverse range of views. As a result, the judging process ensures that smaller companies can compete on a level-playing field with larger ones with bigger budgets and ensure that entries are chosen on merit and not on how much money was spent on a particular piece of communication. An improvement here could be that PAS should make more of an effort to publicise the criteria for choosing jury members as this will clear any doubts regarding their credibility.

An Effective Scoring System

The scoring system is divided into four parts. The first is ‘Challenge, Context & Objectives’ (23.3% of score): Jury members assess the entry in terms of the challenge the brand faced at a particular point and the objectives of the campaign. Equally important is the context with regard to why these objectives were important at the time. The second is ‘Insights & Strategic Idea’ (23.3% of score): Entries are judged on the strategic process and insights that led to the ‘big idea’ which met the communications challenge. The third is ‘Bringing the Idea to Life’ (23.3% of score): Judges gauge how effectively the big idea was brought to life, and why specific media channels were selected. The fourth is ‘Results’ (30% of score): Jury members determine direct correlations between real objectives and results. The ‘Results’ account for 30% of the total score – this part is disproportionately higher compared to the other three criteria which account for 23.3% each. This is what makes the judging process airtight as every campaign is gauged on the basis of its results; in some cases, the idea may be great, but if it does not get results it is not worthy of being a winner. Being part of PAS in general and a jury member in particular has several benefits that people do not seem to realise. Firstly, it brings together many people from different spheres and opens doors for collaborations between brands and agencies as well as freelancers and creative consultants. This creates a sense of community among members of the industry and allows a free flow of innovative ideas, creativity and industry issues. Secondly, for me personally, as a jury member, the judging sessions serve as a learning ground and this kind of learning cannot be gained from any college or university. For example, when the younger jury members discuss the effectiveness of a campaign, their views regarding digital are very different from mine or my senior colleagues; so now, when I work on a digital campaign, I keep their perspectives in mind. Equally important, the Effies have created a healthy competition within the industry and in the process have forced us to up our game and produce work that is better than ever

Ultimately, the Effies are a huge asset for our industry. Winning an Effie means that your peers are commending your work and there is no feeling better than winning one. My earnest request to the industry at large would be to focus on making good entry cases so that the competition becomes even more intense in future. Any and every effort made towards the Effies will ultimately result in the betterment of the local industry.

Finally, I would like to congratulate PAS on their 25th anniversary and hope that they continue to introduce initiatives that motivate our industry to create even better work.

Humayun Farooq is Marketing Director, Health, RB Pakistan. humayun.farooq@rb.com

Keeping Pace With the Consumer
Asif Aziz, Chairman, PAS

Averting the Total Collapse of the Advertising Sector
Hameed Haroon, CEO, The Dawn Media Group

Much Done, More to Do
Javed Jabbar, Recipient, 1st PAS Lifetime Achievement Award

How to Win an Effie
Humayun Farooq, Marketing Director, Health, RB Pakistan

The Five-Letter Word
Ali Rez, Regional ECD Middle East & Pakistan, BBDO

Exposing Pakistani Advertising to Global Perspectives
Tyrone Tellis, Marketing Manager, Bogo

Wrestling With the Digital Revolution in Pakistan
Julian Saunders, Founder, The Joined Up Company

The PAS Experience
Patrick Collister, Editor, Directory Magazine

Hits and Misses
Sheikh Adil, PAS Executive Council Member

Avoiding a Short-Sighted Approach
Qamar Abbas, Executive Director, PAS

As a fairly accurate (though not necessarily a comprehensive) mirror, advertising is also one of the barometers of a country’s economy. The qualification of ‘one of’ instead of ‘the principal’ is pertinent just as the Pakistan Stock Exchange may make news every day with its hyper nervous up-and-down swings. But in real terms the Exchange represents a very small number of citizens – and is only a limited reflector of Pakistan’s total economy. Yet, just as the economy can have a pervasive impact on virtually all aspects of a country, advertising in Pakistan can be seen and heard across the land and in all media. There may be wheat and flour shortages, or the price of sugar may go from sweet to sour. However, we can be sure that the advertising of biscuits and chocolates increases the media’s cholesterol every day.

Despite sharing the need for commercial communication, it took advertisers in Pakistan over 50 years to come together on a sustained organisational basis in order to form and operate their own representative body.

From 1979 to 1996: The 25th anniversary in 2021 of the formation of the Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) should first be viewed briefly from a point in time 17 years earlier. About 42 years ago, at the First Pakistan Advertising Congress held in Karachi on September 3-5, 1979 (of which this writer was the Secretary-General), one of the major study groups we convened was on the role of advertisers. What made this significant was the fact that the Congress was the first time ever when all six sectors relevant to the advertising process came together to share experiences and discuss their respective viewpoints on issues.

The six sectors were/are: advertisers, advertising agencies, media, production services, consumers/citizens and the government. Instead of focusing only on boosting brands, the Congress theme sought to stress the sector’s linkage with hard reality through the words: Advertising and National Development – Challenge and Response. To rub in the message, lunch on the first day was limited to “daal and roti” – at a four-star hotel!

The Study Group on Advertisers comprised eminent leaders of corporations, marketing, advertising agencies and academia. Chairman, Mr Zawwar Hassan, GM Public Affairs, PIA. Alternate Chairman, Mr Khawar Masood Butt, GM, EBM. Members (1) Mr Mahmood Ali, Past President, Marketing Association of Pakistan & Director, Beecham (Pakistan). (2) Mr. A. Shahbaz Khan, GM, Pakistan Burmah Shell. (3) Mr. Wajid Mirza, MD, DJ Keymer & Co. (Pakistan). (4) Mr. A.G. Saeed, Assistant Professor, Institute of Business Administration.

The frame of reference for the Study Group on Advertisers in 1979 was:

Quotation Begins: “I. In the specific economic conditions of today, do advertisers demonstrate adequate commitment to social responsibility? (a) For example, there is a point at which competitiveness between different brands of the same product becomes wasteful duplication.(b) Further, the headlong rush of certain entrepreneurs into ‘boom’ fields, such as the importation of milk powder, creates a disproportionately large and bewildering range of brands. (c) In the peculiar mixed economy of Pakistan, are advertisers in their capacity as developers of industrial, agricultural and commercial projects taking a positive approach to investment?

II. In conducting advertising campaigns, do advertisers ensure accuracy of information conveyed and claims made on behalf of products and services?

The general view is that advertisers in Pakistan are prone to exaggerate in varying degrees so that the affect is to mislead the consumers.

Problems and Recommendations Made in 1979:

(1). In view of the sizeable annual investment in advertising in Pakistan by advertisers i.e. about Rs 20 crores or about $20 million. (Writer’s note: In 2021: while ad expenditure has substantially increased, the rupee-dollar value has sharply declined against the rupee; i.e. total ad spend is currently estimated at about Rs 60 billion or about $380 million). Do advertisers exercise proportionate influence on the terms and conditions of media advertising in terms of cost of media usage, availability or lack of research data, etc.

(2) Unlike other Asian countries, there has been no systematic coordination between advertisers in Pakistan. It was only in November 1978 that about 40 advertisers agreed to establish the Pakistan Society of Advertisers Limited. (Writer’s note: This initiative sadly declined over the next 17 years).

(3) Advertisers should refrain from entering the professional area of advertising agencies. In recent years, a growing number of advertisers have established their own advertising units to create and place advertising in media or have set up ostensibly independent advertising agencies which are, in fact, controlled by advertisers. By doing so, advertisers threaten the employment and security of hundreds of full-time, full-fledged advertising practitioners and dozens of advertising entrepreneurs who have devoted their only asset to this profession – their creative talent. In a national perspective, such encroachment by advertisers gives them an unhealthy control of advertising and media.

Need for a Resolution to Discourage Such Practices:

(4) Even some major advertisers have not recruited, trained and specialised executives/managers to shape and supervise their advertising policy. By ignoring this vital aspect of their operations, advertisers have themselves been responsible for inaccurate, improper and ineffective advertising. This has often placed an unfair burden on advertising agencies. On the positive side, certain advertisers have played a decisive and dynamic role in encouraging advertising not only to be “legal, decent, honest and truthful,” but also inventive and memorable.

(5) Are advertisers sufficiently aware of their moral and financial obligations to advertising agencies in respect of prompt settlement of liabilities?” Quote Ends.

If we use the preceding text from 1979 to assess the institutional development of advertisers since the formation of PAS in 1996, substantive, purposeful progress has been achieved through this collective forum. And within their respective organisations, advertisers have enhanced professional capabilities in marketing and advertising — while some important issues linger and new problems have emerged. But, the good news first.

The informative and well-designed PAS website conveys the eight principal areas of PAS’s activity; the role of advocacy, self-regulation, dispute resolution and arbitration, promoting marketing excellence, conducting research, creating knowledge enrichment hubs, facilitating the convening of Members’ Forums on germane issues and a Help Desk. The fact that PAS introduced a well-prepared Annual PAS Excellence Awards programme does not find prominent space on the homepage though it deserves to be there. There are details available in other sections.

An Executive Council elected every two years, comprising several senior corporate leaders and professional specialists also reflects a reasonable (though not ideal!) gender balance. In addition, there are working groups on subjects ranging from relations with media to relations with government. The credibility of PAS is strengthened by its claim to represent 85% of regular advertisers in the country.

New Distortions: Operated on a day-to-day basis by a competent, dedicated, full-time team, PAS also faces (but does not necessarily address) the new issues of dominance and asymmetry as, for instance in the concentration of a large part of advertising placements into one or two major media buying houses. Other issues include the failure of a dominant TV audience rating system to satisfy citizens’ expectations and preferences for media content even though it meets technical criteria and is accepted by advertisers. Or the growing intrusion of advertising content into programming content. Imbalances of any kind are undesirable. There are also disturbing reports about corrupt practices and unethical transactions, both by individuals and by organisations. Clearly, far more scrutiny and corrective actions are required.

Nevertheless, in the absence of a long overdue, officially legislated multi-sectoral Advertising Council, PAS enables coherent interaction with other representative forums such as the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and the Pakistan Broadcasters’ Association. Although it was forums initiated by advertising agencies (the most vulnerable segment compared to advertisers and media) – such as the Pakistan Advertising Association in the late seventies, eighties, early nineties – that set the pace for the institutional development of representative bodies in the total advertising sector, today in 2021, the role of the Advertising Agencies’ Association of Pakistan has reportedly weakened. Perhaps this is one of the fallouts from the radical shifts that have occurred in the advertising sector as a whole.

Even as change intensifies across the world and in Pakistan, and basic alterations take place through new technologies, new convergences, the changed role of advertising agencies, the ascent of digital media and the decline of print media, PAS appears to advance, with capability and commitment, the capacity of its members to meet the new challenges.

Javed Jabbar is an author, former Senator and Federal Minister, and the recipient of the first Lifetime Achievement Award by the Pakistan Advertisers’ Society in 2017. www.javedjabbar.net

Hameed Haroon, CEO, The Dawn Media Group, reflects on the achievements of PAS and the critical areas that still need addressing.

MARIAM ALI BAIG: From a print media owner perspective, what is your assessment on what PAS has achieved in the last 25 years?
HAMEED HAROON: From the perspective of a print media publisher – the varied visions of PAS are distinct, depending upon which media and its relations with PAS you look at. PAS started as an elite club of advertisers focused mainly on TV. This focus has now been enlarged to somewhat include digital media. However, this does not mean that the various advertising streams, as prioritised by PAS, correspond to the realities as they exist in Pakistan’s advertising sector – it simply means that PAS has unwittingly promoted uneven development in its relations with a very large print medium, thus failing in certain central things and keeping the structure of other advertising streams intact and progressing.

MAB: Failure in what sense?
HH: It is difficult to achieve advertising transformation based only on a collection of upper-crust clients and without the participation of the ad agencies, the media buying houses and the media itself. The ground for a grand tripartite dialogue has never been adequately explored by PAS and this is the fundamental reason why PAS has not been able to generate an industry-wide momentum in transformation. PAS’s growth has taken place against a backdrop of ad agencies plummeting in terms of their creativity, marketing skills and their ability to discern accurate media choices. This blurs the picture when one analyses PAS’s achievements. What is remarkable is how much PAS has been able to accomplish despite the odds. The present dispensation of PAS has been far more successful and inclusive than its earlier vision as an elite multinational club. But PAS continues to be helpless, because the transformation of the industry cannot be undertaken by one institution alone. There are so many conflicting vested interests pulling in different directions. Ad agencies in terms of their original goals and perspectives on creativity, marketing and integrity, are virtually in collapse.

MAB: Can you define what you call a collapse?
HH: I define a collapse as something which is inherently unstable and demonstrates hugely variant patterns of advertising expenditure, thus acting as an obstacle to advertising stability and growth. PAS represents the advertisers, but it cannot be viewed as a sole proxy for advertising behaviour since the government is the largest advertiser in the country – and the government is not in PAS. The government has purposely excluded PAS from their dialogue on media and advertising and keeps, on an ad hoc basis, making up random rules to restructure advertising through centralised schemes that have damaged the functioning of the advertising sector. Under these circumstances, how much can you expect PAS to accomplish in terms of stabilising the advertising sector and wildly fluctuating advertising expenditures? Had all other cross media bodies worked with the government with a measure of integrity and vision, the success of advertising communications would have been considerably different from what it is today. The very least one can say about PAS is that it has, during this period of turmoil, kept all the right flags flying.

MAB: Could you elaborate on what you mean by hugely variant patterns of advertising expenditure?
HH: The government accounts for a major component of the overall ad expenditure. Today, it is an even larger component than it was two years ago, because of the prolonged recession in the private sector. In Pakistan, whenever a deep recession sets in, the bigger advertising decision making blocks are the first to stumble. This constant upping and downing prevents any kind of sustained media and advertising agency development – and which is necessary for the sustenance of such large advertising large blocks. Many would believe that such blocks are targeted by the government in an effort to more effectively control the tone and texture of the media and its major sources of revenue, which guarantee a measure of editorial independence. These wildly fluctuating advertising expenditures prevent industry associations from adhering to rules and ethics, creating a vortex and a downward plunge which undermines the stable growth of advertising. What the government has done with the advertising sector in terms of repositioning commission structures and uprooting the existing pattern of advertising recoveries are not minor policy measures and have resulted in a collapse of large sub-sectors within advertising. To be fair, the government is not the only unstable advertiser that has contributed to this vortex. Vast sections of advertisers in the private sector have accentuated this instability. To make matters worse, massive bankruptcies have resulted from the non bona fide behaviour of some such clients. Pakistan must be one of the few countries in the world where you can advertise to the tune of dozens of millions of rupees without a bank guarantee and without paying a portion of the initial outlay to the agencies in advance.

MAB: You mentioned that despite this PAS has all the right flags flying; these are?
HH: Look at how negatively advertising creativity has been viewed by other industry bodies. This is clear with respect to how advertising volume takes strong precedence over creativity in advertising awards... How the role of creative personnel is largely overlooked by inter-industry professionals compared to the accolades that are heaped on their bosses. PAS is the only organisation that has worked to interact with advertising professionals in different organisations at junior and mid-levels. The idea of an industry wide organisation that works intimately with the creativity of experts and workers is a goal which has been lost in other industry bodies – but not on PAS, and this is why I say PAS has many of the right flags flying already.

MAB: Which are the major areas in need of change within the advertising sector?
HH: Any advertising industry needs a minimal level of regulation to govern ethics and behaviour within accepted industry norms. It also needs large areas of non-regulation designed to encourage growth, when coupled with the minimum dose of ethics; the overregulation of advertising goes hand in glove with the overregulation of media. Some of it has to do with the envy with which advertising professionals in the information ministries across the country view the near abysmal performance of their own advertising budgets. This envy is reflected in an entirely negative desire by political decision makers to strengthen an ongoing spurt of taxes on advertising.

MAB: How does the government’s attitude to the media impact the performance of PAS?
HH: The bottom-line for PAS is to protect the momentum of rational and ethically sound advertising expenditures. PAS needs to ensure that its members are not taken for a ride by any of the other actors within the industry. There are thus strong elements of contradiction between advertiser efficacy and media independence on one hand and government intervention in this sector on the other. PAS seeks to improve advertising standards, but it can hardly take upon itself the task of restructuring the industry. It is not clear to me that anyone can save the ad agencies in the long run. The malpractices that ensue upon a supposedly slim margin of commissions and production costs are only part of the story; dysfunctional behaviour from advertisers has had an adverse impact on the development of an ethical and relatively autonomous advertising sector.

MAB: Yet, it is difficult to deny that good advertising has emerged from the agencies, if not enough of it.
HH: Where have they progressed? Compare it to what they produced 30 years ago. Today, there is a lot of glitter and gloss, most of which is imported from foreign ads. The creative giants of Pakistani advertising history existed several decades ago and not today. Give younger professionals a chance – both on the agency and advertiser side – and you will be able to witness an explosion in advertising creativity in Pakistan once again. There is a room for a proactive policy here from PAS.

MAB: Where can solutions be found?
HH: The rules and procedures governing advertising have to be transformed. Unless society, government and the electorate work together in a democracy to transform themselves, there is not going to be the societal change the advertising sector requires. There is a need for heavy doses of education, awareness, freedom of expression and of association. In a society like Pakistan that is in chaotic transformation and in which there is no legal basis for the dissemination of information in an independent form; in which there is no consistent linear development of institutions in any sector… under those circumstances, the shortcomings the advertising sector faces are inevitable. In that context, PAS over the last several years has done well. PAS needs to understand the advertising sector more accurately and dispassionately question the strengths and weaknesses of different media. PAS needs to evolve a multipronged strategy to combat a total collapse of the advertising sector. Is PAS up to it? I think so.

For feedback: aurora@dawn.com

MARIAM ALI BAIG: What have been the major achievements of PAS in these last 25 years?   ASIF AZIZ: PAS has helped to build an advertising community. We created an identity for marketers and built a community based on sharing knowledge and ideas and imparting best practices. We have given marketers a purpose and a direction and helped evolve the profession. However, I don’t think we have done anything near enough to what needs to be done. For example, we still look across the border for inspiration from Indian campaigns; as a result, our ads tend to be song and dance routines. We need to motivate people to bring in a greater degree of creativity to their campaigns. We also have to understand the implications of the proliferation of the media. People build a TV campaign and then they figure out which snippet they can put on across digital platforms, which bit can be used as an image for a billboard and which one can be used for print. They call this advertising; I call it a road crash. Marketers need to understand their audiences and build messages that relate to them. My children have no interest in a billboard, but they have every interest in an Instagram page; therefore, in this case, the advertising should be geared towards that Instagram user as opposed to ‘digital’ users in general. We need to go where our consumers are going, not where they have been. We need to understand that every digital channel attracts different consumer types. 

MAB: You mentioned Indian advertising; the reality is that many of our ads are blatant copies. Shouldn’t PAS be encouraging their members to create something they can own?
AA: We do. Firstly, through our seminars which are led by experts; secondly, the Effie Awards are a platform where marketers and advertisers come together and critique each other’s work, within the community – and this is really important. Thirdly, through our Executive Council, we talk to member companies about their challenges, where they feel their deficiencies are and how we can help. PAS acts as a coach to senior professionals. The Executive Council is composed of about 14 members from diverse industries and they all reach out to our members for discussions.

MAB: How does the Executive Council function and how does it interact with the larger membership?
AA: The Executive Council meets regularly every six weeks. Recently our agenda was about measuring digital audiences, specifically how to leverage our learnings about measuring TV audiences into measuring digital audiences. In terms of digital, we are reliant on Google and Facebook, but that is just one source of data. What about others? How can we measure and see where our consumers are going? We are thinking about forming a think tank aimed at providing learnings in terms of effectiveness and creativity and cascading that to the rest of our membership.

MAB: PAS members are mainly drawn from the big advertisers; what is being done to attract smaller advertisers? Are there barriers that may discourage them from joining?
AA: I honestly think that the real barrier is apathy because once people become members, they have no issues. I think it is also about the number of people we have available to go out and talk to potential members. This is one of our limiting factors; perhaps should recruit a person specifically for the membership drive.

MAB: Does the Executive Council address relationships with the advertising agencies?   AA: We have not done anything proactively on that front, although specific discussions happen from time to time. The problem is the client-agency background, and we are on the client side. Furthermore, ad agencies have their own association. Having said this, before the pandemic, we used to have six-monthly and quarterly Executive Council meetings in different cities and afterwards we would invite agencies, media buyers and media owners to an informal high tea.

Going forward, something I want to do more of is connect with the start-up generation. However, the reality is that they are not the world’s biggest advertisers. We are thinking of setting up a link with the national incubation centres and offering them mentorship by plugging in our Executive Council members to help them build their business and marketing plans and teach them how to tailor their message to their audiences.

MAB: How challenging has the pandemic been for PAS members?
AA: Different sectors were impacted more than others and in terms of the FMCG sector – and similarly to telecoms and retail – consumer goods continued to be sold, albeit perhaps through different distribution methods. 

MAB: Has there been a rebound in the economy since the lockdown?
AA: It is too early to call it a rebound. We are in a very precarious and fragile situation and I have to monitor the business on a weekly basis, as it changes every week. I cannot say with a great degree of confidence how things will be in April or May. I can tell roughly which direction things are going. So yes, things have rebounded but they are not where they used to be in 2019 and at the same time, they are not where they were in April or May last year. Pick your spectrum, every industry is different.

MAB: In some ways, the pandemic acted as a wakeup call for some advertisers, in the sense that they realised that the content and tone of their messaging had to change. Do you think this is a permanent change?
AA: This year, one of the most hotly contested categories in the Effies was doing good for society, for the community and Pakistan. All three are different categories and they have had the highest number of entries. I think during the crisis, a lot of people stood up and took ownership of purpose; what is your purpose as an organisation – and it cannot just be to satisfy profitably. My purpose every day is to connect and bring Pakistan into the digital world, not just bring more customers in. When Jazz pledged Rs 1.2 billion for Covid-19 relief, the next competitor pledged Rs 1.5 billion, the next one, Rs 1.6 billion and the next, two billion rupees. I don’t see this as a race; it’s good – we started something and that was what was important. It is more important to start something; it’s harder to do that.

MAB: Twenty-five years on and given the pace of change technology has wrought, don’t you think PAS should be embracing a new approach more in tune with these changes?
AA: I agree that we need to be more of a thought leader. I do think it is up to us to make our members realise that there is a world beyond the song and dance routine. Going forward, something I want to do more of is connect with the start-up generation. However, the reality is that they are not the world’s biggest advertisers. We are thinking of setting up a link with the national incubation centres and offering them mentorship by plugging in our Executive Council members to help them build their business and marketing plans and teach them how to tailor their message to their audiences. These guys do not necessarily know these things; they may be great at building an innovative product, they are not very good at marketing. I especially want to connect with the digital start-ups that will drive the digital ecosystem within Pakistan.  

MAB: What inspires and frustrates you most about PAS?
AA: What inspires me is the diversity of our Executive Council members and the conversations this leads to. It’s good to hear all those views around a single table. What frustrates me is that there is not enough awareness and understanding of the fact that the world is evolving and we need to move fast to where our audiences are. The bulk of Pakistani society is under 25. Today, we have one hundred million data users in Pakistan and in five years, everybody will be a data user. Everybody has access to the internet now; they have a targeted device in their hands that is personalised to them. We have to realise that brands will no longer be built on TV in between cricket overs; they will be built somewhere else and I suspect we are missing out on a generation. We need to reconnect with that generation and go where they are and not where they have been.

For feedback: aurora@dawn.com 

Time flies! 1996 seems like only yesterday. It gives me enormous satisfaction to see PAS celebrate 25 years. It is not often that one can see the maturity of a new initiative in one’s own lifetime. I feel humbled and lucky to see this day.

I was then the Chief Executive and Regional Head of Reckitt & Colman (Reckitt Benckiser). At 51, my passion to contribute to the development of the marketing profession in Pakistan was growing, having gained so much from it personally and professionally in the previous 26 years. An opportunity that fanned this passion emerged in the early nineties.

Marketing and media have made major strides since the birth of Pakistan. Starting in the late forties, with personal product promotions shop to shop, some press ads, a bit of radio (mainly announcements; jingles and song and dance came later) the advertising spend was perhaps less than one billion dollars nationally. In the mid-sixties, the introduction of cinema advertising, and more so TV, signalled a major change in creativity, copywriting, graphics, production and media management. In the late nineties, a technological revolution started in animation and other production techniques and equipment; product endorsements by celebrities began. Social norms and values dominated the degree of liberalisation and gradually the female appearance began. There were only a few ad agencies and media was usually chosen from among leading dailies, TV, cinema and radio. In the mid-fifties, the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) came into being as did the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation. The Pakistan Advertising Association (PAA) was formed in 1973 and became the voice of the ad agencies.

By the mid-nineties, the national advertising spend had reached Rs 25 billion, of which TV accounted for 65% and about a third went to print, followed by the other media. Media was booming and new TV channels emerged and cinema was regaining popularity; FM radio was proliferating. Media planning was still in its infancy. The challenge was whether the huge ad spend of between five to 20% of sales was achieving the desired ‘bang for the buck’. Every time my industry colleagues met, we would discuss this. Other challenges were raising advertising standards and giving advertisers a voice. The interests of APNS and PAA overlapped but they were also different, even conflicting. For example, the print media may not like the accuracy of readership data, or PTV may want to remain ignorant of its competition.

A few of us decided to do something about this and PAS was formed in 1996. The initial years of any organisation, especially one that is unprecedented, are the most challenging in terms of achieving effectiveness and sustainability. I must recognise the commitment and drive of Nadeem Hussain and Anwar Chaudry (Citibank), Sohail Ansar (Unilever), Philippe Bovay and Faisal Sabzwari (P&G), Khawar Butt and Azhar Javed (EBM), Tony Devine (Shell), Nizam Khan and Ali Ahmad Khan (PepsiCo International), and Salman Shareef (Ciba-Geigy). I was elected as the Founding Chair and Zubair Ali was the Executive Director. By 1998, we had over 20 members who together accounted for 80% of the national advertising spend.

We recognised from the beginning that we had to give a solid foundation to PAS; a legal structure, a strong paid secretariat and a reliable source of finance. Strategically we also agreed to ‘bite only as much as we could chew’. This was done and the membership drive brought in the funds.

Vision and Mission: To establish a clear way forward we developed the vision and mission of the Society: “PAS is the true representative of the aspirations and interests of the advertisers in our country. The society is dedicated to help improve the standards of the advertising environment and the professional and ethical practices in the advertising industry. The Society aspires that advertising is efficient and effective for the advertiser, accruing fair rewards for media, agencies and allied suppliers, providing true honest and equitable information to the consumer.”

Understanding Media Profile and Reach: The challenge was to gain a better understanding of the profile and penetration of media. A survey was undertaken by Aftab Associates and The Establishment Survey (as the report was called) was published in November 1998. This provided a sound basis for the audience measurement initiatives we were planning. The survey would cost five million rupees, but we were only able to source 3.7 million rupees. I cannot remember if we ever paid Aftab or if he agreed to manage the rest. Thanks Aftab! Sarmad Ali contributed Rs 700,000 on behalf of The News.

Best Advertising Practices and Code of Conduct: The fundamental requirement in setting higher standards in advertising is to ensure that what is claimed is delivered. We set up a committee to draw up the PAS Code of Advertising Practices, in consultation with all stakeholders. The committee, led by Tony Devine, included Khalid Rauf (Lintas), Nabeel Malik (ABN AMRO), examined the codes applicable to other major markets and synthesised them into a code applicable to Pakistan. Shell bore the cost of printing the Code, which was launched in 1998 and paid for by Unilever.

Clearing the Clutter: This was a big hole through which money was and is being wasted – too many ads running in too short a period. For example, in 1997 The X-Files, aired on Star Plus, ran a maximum of seven ads per programme with only three spots telecast per ad break; in contrast, during PTV’s Ranjish and NTM’s Ilzam, 49 and 60 ads were respectively aired per programme. A PAS committee worked with the media to find a commercially sensible solution, but I must confess I wish we could have achieved greater success, in spite of the efforts made by Sohail Ansar, Noman Siddiqui and Jamil Ahmed. The enormous difficulty is reflected in the fact that the problem exists even today.

Plagiarism: I must acknowledge the bold efforts made by the Plagiarism Committee consisting of Tony Devine (Chair), Zafar Siddiqui, Nabil Mallek and Zubair Ali. The first attack came from the giants – P&G against Unilever – and was the ultimate test for our committee. In concluding the matter, Ian Sangster (then Chairman of Unilever), wrote: “Whilst we maintain our stand that we did not copy, we have decided to change that shot. And this decision has been partly influenced by PAS’s request.” This was a major achievement. As they say about the UN, when the battle is between two major countries, the UN disappears. PAS, however, did not disappear.

Professional Development: With the launch of new satellite channels and the growth and complexity within other media, it no longer sufficed to spend a large sum on traditional media and the target audience now had to be more sharply defined. This required a change of paradigms and skills. PAS pursued training sessions and seminars for the industry. This committee was led by Zafar Siddiqui.

A National Role with the Government: An improved business performance ultimately leads to a better socio-economic development of a nation. It was essential that PAS played an active role in convincing the government to recognise its ability to contribute. PAS interacted with the government at various levels and Mian Khursheed Mahmood Kasuri (then Chairman, National Committee on Information & Media Development), invited PAS to advise on improvements in PTV. An effective role was played in censorship issues. The government banned the use of Indian models or music or production in local ads, but PAS took up the issue and convinced them otherwise.

Interaction with Professional Bodies: Learning through interaction is vital and PAS conducted seminars and workshops and interacted internationally. David Vernon of BESO was invited from the UK to advise on PAS initiatives and an 82-page report was published on the subject: PAS a member of the World Federation of Advertisers.

In January 2000, having been appointed Minister of State by the Musharraf government I had to part with PAS.

Today, in addition to serving the cause of the industry, I would suggest that PAS take an aggressive stand in furthering national socio-economic development. PAS can build on the progress made in the past with the government and advise the government on issues like farm-to-market marketing, price management, consumer protection, achieving a quantum leap in exports and import substitution, branding Pakistan better... l could go on. Pakistan needs the top brains PAS has.

I would love to see clutter reduced. It is wasting advertisers millions if not billions of rupees.

The race of change has increased manifold, and this is only the beginning. We need training and development to cope with emerging trends and I do not see the desirable level of focus in this area in Pakistan; we need to get IBA, LUMS and international universities involved.

A word of advice to the new generation of advertisers. Marketers, the rate of change is unbelievable. Watch out every day, measure and update yourselves. If you did your MBA today, within three years you may be highly uneducated. I quote Jeff Welch: “When the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

Tariq Ikram (SI) is Founder Chairman, PAS. He was CEO/Regional Head, Reckitt Benckiser, President, OICC & I, Marketing Association and Management Association, Founder Chair, Pakistan Research Society, and Minister of State/CEO TDAP. He presently sits on various boards as an independent director and is faculty for Corporate Governance, Strategy, Leadership Change Management, PICG and NIM.

Let me start by explaining why public health communication is important for Pakistan since I am involved in the subject matter. Unlike developed countries, where citizens expect to have their healthcare needs taken care of after paying taxes, Pakistan spends a minuscule portion of its GDP on healthcare. The burden of providing quality healthcare to the citizens of Pakistan was systematically privatised in the eighties. This has put a heavy burden on the people, especially on the poor.

The cost is high in monetary terms on the majority of people as they have to mostly pay for healthcare out of their pockets and that is not the whole cost they bear. The sad insight, after studying healthcare data, is that many poor families consciously choose to live, and often die, with a high ‘disease burden’ without getting the proper treatment required. The situation is especially bad when it comes to medicines as their prices, including lifesaving drugs, have risen to 400% over the past three years. A sad situation indeed.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), disease burden in a country indicates the impact of health problems leading to mortality or loss of health due to disability, injury and risk factors. Disease burden is estimated by adding together the number of years of life lost because of early death due to a disease and the number of years of life lived with disability due to the disease. Together, this is termed as Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) or, the disease burden.

In Pakistan, the disease burden is 21,004 DALYs lost per 100,000 people (according to a report published by the Ministry of National Health Services) which is high, although it has improved since the year 2000. The solution to this problem is a combination of behaviour change on the part of the people and access to quality healthcare facilities on the part of the government and other philanthropic organisations. Although there is little behaviour change communications can do for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, it can massively contribute to improving the situation for 49.9% of the disease burden in Pakistan.

A lot can be achieved to improve this situation through behaviour change, obesity, malnutrition and pollution-related diseases which contribute heavily to the DALYs. Not surprisingly, people who are more affluent and well-educated have greater access to gyms, quality nutrition and dieticians. Others lack the education and behaviours to prevent such issues, especially those related to hygiene (diarrhoea, Covid-19, others) which fill up to half the hospital beds in the country.

It, therefore, becomes the government’s responsibility to provide the general public with access to facilities such as clean drinking water and sanitation; however, simply providing the facilities is not enough. They also need to drive behaviour change within the general public to avoid the suffering caused by preventable issues.

For example, Public Health England executed the world’s largest anti-obesity campaign known as Change4Life to help citizens overcome the burden of preventable obesity. The campaign removed some of the guilt and shame associated with obesity and shifted the blame to modern life. It educated the public about how they could take simple and practical steps to improve health outcomes. The integrated campaign involved broadcast media as well as private sector and grassroots engagement, resulting in the fastest-building campaign in UK Government history. It won an Award for Excellence from the Marketing Society, with 85% of mothers agreeing the campaign “made me think about my children’s health in the long term” and penetration of healthier foods increasing by 20% in families with children exposed to the campaign.

In Pakistan, an example of a behaviour change campaign is the communication undertaken for the prevention of Covid-19 focusing on the WHO prescribed behaviours of washing hands with soap and water, wearing a face mask and ensuring effective social distancing. It is important to note that while there was a lot of communication and awareness (consistently above 85% according to Ipsos surveys), the adoption of preventative behaviours dropped during some campaign periods while the campaign was on the air. The massive repetition of the same advice again and again without emotional engagement and contextualisation fatigued audiences causing them to deliberately ignore the advice!

The Critical Role of Behaviour Change Communications for Public Health

The first thing I must highlight is the difference between the regular stock of health-related communication that comes from the government and effective behaviour change communication. Changing behaviours is much more than making people aware of issues and sharing the official government narrative. The typical stock of government communication focuses on broadcasting official directions to people and informing them about official actions the government has taken to provide them with facilities. Effective behaviour change communications emphasise ‘role modelling’ simple and highly specific behaviours, rather than giving general advice and information. According to Brian Jeffrey Fogg (a research associate at Stanford University), Motivation, Ability and Prompts must work simultaneously and together for behaviour to change.

1 Motivation is the main driver to persuade people to make an effort, which can be driven by a desire for a better life for themselves and their families, or by a desire to avoid suffering. It is important to clearly understand peoples’ motivators and to hone in on them through communications.

2 Ability is the realistic ease of access people will have to the requisite facilities required for the behaviour change. For example, access to soap and running water is critical for behaviour change linked to hygiene. If access is physically difficult or perceived to be difficult, then action will be unlikely. Conversely, a high sense of ease and convenience increase perceived ability and accelerate behaviour change.

3 Prompts are nudges given to the audience to convert the motivation into tangible results at the right moments in time. For example, a nudge to eat healthy food at the right time, or to wear a mask in public places for corona, or a Facebook ping to respond to a new notification. Prompts can be given through advertising, signage, leaflets or by word of mouth. Effective prompts should be simple and focused on the tangible behaviours to emphasise (for example, wash hands, call a certain number, consciously restrict sugar intake) rather than on generic feel-good messaging.

Closing Thoughts

The people who are most in need of health-related behaviour change communication tend to be at the bottom half of the pyramid; the people in the top half tend to be better educated and have access to better facilities. Most agencies working with consumer brands are good at engaging the top half but can struggle to connect and contextualise with the bottom half.

The easier we make it for our audiences to adopt new behaviours (or stop certain behaviours), the more successful the behaviour change process will be. People like to start with baby steps and will be turned off if the change process is perceived to be difficult or cumbersome.

I sincerely believe that better public health behaviour change communications by the government and by philanthropic institutions will make life better for millions of Pakistanis. A lot of suffering can be avoided if the behaviour change communication is effective. Quality healthcare treatment is expensive and hard to access for millions in Pakistan and prevention is always better than the cure.

Afzal Hussain is Chief Strategy Officer & General Manager, M&C Saatchi World Services Pakistan.
afzal.hussain@mcsaatchi.com

Evolving patient needs and demographics, innovations in medical technology, complex healthcare systems and access to emerging markets are just some of the many demands of the pharma and life sciences sector.

The pharmaceutical industry is facing rapid changes as we move into digital transformation and business acceleration. With business transformation comes the need to ensure continuously aligned mindsets, attitudes, perceptions and a shared vision. Changes in technology, processes and procedures mean that to keep current, professionals must re-skill and up-skill to comply with the growing demands of the industry. From compliance issues and acquisitions to bringing a new drug to market, employees in the pharmaceutical industry know that continual learning is essential for career success. Equally important is the need to change the way the organisation delivers learning to suit this fast-moving and challenging environment.

Sales training continues to be the bread and butter for many pharma companies, and learning and development (L&D) departments and traditional classroom-based courses are still very popular, offering learners direct feedback from instructors as well as opportunities to network with colleagues. But inefficiencies built into courses as well as time and cost constraints, mean that companies are increasingly looking for learning methods that complement traditional, instructor-led training. Mobile technologies and social media have a growing impact on learning delivery, as time-strapped learners look for ‘bite-sized’ content to consume wherever and whenever it suits them.

As digital technology becomes more embedded within healthcare, it opens up the potential to use technology in more engaging ways to deliver learning. The use of digital platforms for training is also cost-effective because you can train personnel on-demand at any time of the day or week. L&D departments are also moving to new offline options; for example, companies like Genentech and B. Braun equipped their sales forces with iPods, allowing the efficient distribution of video or audio podcast courses with relative ease. Although there is no ‘one size fits all’ training design that will work for all companies, some basic principles have proven to be most effective.

1 Short Modules: Bite-sized modules retain better attention among employees, particularly when there is a large volume of information to disperse across teams. Modern research supports the theory that our brains respond better to targeted information that is repeated often, rather than large volumes of data delivered at a one-off learning event.

2 Cloud-Based Servers: Cloud-based distribution systems, portals and gateways deliver highly personalised content and tools to users on a wide range of devices and channels that are accessible from anywhere, any time. As new drugs are launched, digital content on cloud servers allows employees to be updated rapidly about the composition, treatment and side effects, among other properties, of these drugs. A notification is then sent across to inform everyone of the update and can be accessed anywhere, any time on any device. Thus, the training material remains truly dynamic.

3 Scenario-Based Learning: Online learning is the perfect tool to support managers in an immersive training environment where they meet realistic work challenges and receive realistic feedback by the use of simulated scenarios which use narratives to guide learners through certain situations which can be adapted based on the choices and responses of the learners.

4 Goal-Based Assessments: Another factor that L&D departments are delving into is data analytics to assess if training dollars spent lead to positive changes for the learner and their customers. They are pooling performance data, post-course assessment results, financial data and other metrics to create ‘dashboards’ to view an employee’s performance on test scores, time to completion, and compliance on policy exams.

5 Specialised Training Modules: There are varied job roles in the pharmaceutical industry and although most employees require some amount of common knowledge, all of them do not need to know everything. Designing training modules specific to a job role allows the content to cover a wider spectrum of subjects. It also saves the employee from having to go through unnecessary information.

Additionally, a single source of content should be adaptable for different audiences. For example, a sales executive and a marketing manager may need access to the same information, although the work they do is different. This means that a marketing manager needs to find the best features of the drug to pitch to the consumer. However, a sales representative will need more information about the features that will help them market the drug to medical professionals and retailers. Highlighting the information that best suits their needs individually will present a far more effective result.

Adaptive Learning: Instead of assuming that everyone comes to a training programme with the same level of existing knowledge or skills, adaptive learning solutions first establish what the individual already knows. It then becomes possible to complement that knowledge with short, highly relevant learning modules. Learning today needs to be much more closely tailored to the needs and interests of individuals. In other words, it needs to be personalised.

Interesting Content: Ensuring the course is interactive keeps employees focused and engaged. A very popular choice for mobile-based training is using short, animated video clips to present complex information. Visuals are the best medium for learning as our mind records and comprehends visual cues better. Information presented via this medium is retained more effectively by the trainees.

Here are some examples of areas within the pharmaceutical industry that can benefit the most from a digital learning strategy.

1 Sales: Traditional classroom training is often a challenge to attend. Sales reps are always on the road, and their schedules make it difficult to attend classroom training. Digital and mobile delivery approaches are ideal when developing pharmaceutical sales training courses helping sales reps stay on top of newly released product information. Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, Ethicon, used micro-learning platforms for their sales team to increase product knowledge. They trained more than 1,000 reps globally where their knowledge increased by 49%.

2 Manufacturing: For any new laws, procedures and regulations, compliance training is required, as well as the push for environmental compliance in recent years. Due to the unrealistic mounds of information to be taught, traditional methods of learning are no longer viable. As in any industry, taking employees from the production floor and putting them in classrooms for training can mean production slowdowns and loss of revenue. Digital learning is the perfect solution for up-skilling employees without interrupting production levels. Capital Blue Cross used micro-learning to achieve 40% improvement in knowledge retention and reduce 66% of errors in the manufacturing process.

3 Marketing: According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the pharmaceutical market is undergoing a radical change and as a consequence, the role of the medical representative is broadening. PwC stated that there is a pressing need for specialist marketing personnel who can serve the needs of experts in various branches of medicine. The digital medium can be used to transform the normal medical representative into a specialist by providing comprehensive training on products related to a particular medical speciality. Short, mobile-compatible digital content goes a long way in helping medico-marketing personnel master complex concepts. They can also be used to provide just-in-time training support very effectively.

4 Safety and Compliance: Safety is an important concern in the pharmaceutical industry, especially in laboratories and manufacturing plants. The global nature of the industry necessitates companies to abide by legal requirements and language considerations, depending on the country. With the help of micro-learning, Merck helped to reduce accidents in 52 manufacturing sites around the world and rolled out the module at once across the globe covering more than 24,000 at one go. This resulted in a reduction in accidents and promoting a safe working environment.

As with every other area of life and work, digital technology is fundamentally changing the way we approach learning. Pharma companies will need to position themselves to compete in this increasingly digitised world by delivering information to people as and when they need it and measuring the impact that learning is having on business outcomes.

Fauzia Kerai Khan is Chief Executive, i&b Consulting, Training, eLearning.
fauzia@iandbconsulting.com

Unlike other ‘sexier’ industries like FMCGs or telcos, pharmaceuticals and the healthcare business do not usually get a lot of admiration from marketing types like us. A major reason could be that we cannot plaster a seductive picture of Mahira Khan holding up a bottle or blister pack of whatever and call it a day. Or maybe it is because it’s hard to get budget approvals for overproduced emotional tearjerkers or dance numbers when you are working in this field.

Yet, underneath it all lies the inherent fear advertisers have of working with such a regulated industry; we hate the constraint. Our usual bag of tricks will not work here. Massive medicinal brands can end up competing with, and sometimes coexisting with, generics. In other words, up is down in this Rs 500 billion industry – and honestly, most of us don’t know how to tackle it.

At the heart of it all is the relatively well-defined target audience persona that most pharma marketing is geared towards – the healthcare professional (HCP). That is fancy talk for doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or whomsoever is the gatekeeper to making decisions on endorsing one product over another. The end consumer may be the one buying and popping the pills, but it is the HCP who determines what is consumed. To pharmaceuticals, the RX pad is worth its weight in gold.

When Ishtehari made the first foray into healthcare marketing, we also had a similarly closed mindset. We stereotyped the HCP to be a conservative, straight-to-business sort of person, operating on rationality alone. Suffice it to say, we were quickly set straight by our counterparts on the pharma brand side. It was only when we began to see the doctor for the human that s/he is, that we began to understand their particular worldview.

We quickly realised that behind even the most conformist HCP and the most conservative patient is a human being yearning for engagement. This is where we tried to excel. Our guiding principle morphed to look beyond the traditional way of doing things and develop an idea worth the rarest of things – human attention.

It was a long shot, but it started to show dividends. Over the last few years, we have managed to work extensively with giants in the Pakistani healthcare space, such as Abbott, Bayer, Getz, GSK and Martin Dow. We have even undertaken public health projects for Johns Hopkins, Marie Stopes Society and DKT.

Along the way, we began to see that the HCP has a strictly regimented routine; a noble cause plagued by monotony. Any break that we could offer them from their regular lives seemed to be welcome. We needed to engage them intellectually and entertain cautiously.

Sure, we do not have the usual mediums to work with, but we began focusing on what we did have; access to their immediate surroundings. Whether it is the doctor’s private chambers, the waiting room, or the symposiums they attend – we needed to hook them and provide actual value, rather than just a pushing product.

To be honest, the product was hard to push anyway. Imagine trying to increase share of mind for a drug that has been around 30 years and pretty much unchanged for decades. Now, throw in a generic, cheaper drug in the mix – the makers of which will conveniently entice HCPs with free international tours and random gifts to cement their position in the prescription pecking order.

To combat this, we learnt to rely on storytelling. To illustrate: one of the brands we have been working on with a multiyear strategy is indicated for typhoid. Not exactly the most exciting of elements to be working with, right? We did some primary research and found medical journal insights that proposed that one of the suspected causes of Alexander the Great’s death was typhoid. We piggybacked from that foundation to create an entire interactive storyline around Alexander. To add a bit of drama, we contrasted Alexander’s triumphs and legendary invincibility to the fact that his deadliest foe was no man, but a disease for which a cure had not yet been discovered. Imagine the world today if he had not suddenly died when he did. Would we now be in Pakistan or Alexandria?

In this example, we helped doctors take a journey via rich media (audio, video and immersive experiences) through the life and times of Alexander; making them feel as if the great warrior was sitting in their waiting room keen to be diagnosed. We created everything from board games to full-fledged events, all in an attempt to break the hectic humdrum of a doctor’s life, with some medically relevant infotainment.

With this and every other project we have undertaken for healthcare companies, there is the constant threat of violating government mandated regulatory restrictions and the multinational’s pharmacovigilance guidelines. Everything has to be strictly above board. It wasn’t just lip service either. We did lose one of our consumer facing pharma brands because the answer we gave to a social media query was not worded according to set SOPs. It is nerve-wracking work, but undoubtedly exciting if you put your heart into it.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is the inherent distrust the HCP community has against overly direct marketing, especially in the case of pharma based brands that are becoming more consumer led. Here, we have to be careful not to antagonise the doctors; advertising is sometimes considered to be crass and the medical community will stop prescribing a brand if they feel it is being pushed with pomp and flair on media, alternative or mainstream.

At the risk of oversimplifying this rather nuanced branch of marketing, I will say this. The key to unlocking the true potential of pharmaceutical brands lies in having an intimate understanding of the HCP. They want to be engaged, but they have little time to give. They want to be supported, but the line between support and patronising is thin. They respond to storytelling, as long as there is a subtlety to it.

There are few reputable agencies in Pakistan that pay attention to the healthcare sector, much to their disadvantage. This healthcare marketing industry is moving away from giveaways and conferences and is ripe for smart, strategic marketing that can convince the toughest of decision-makers – doctors and health staff.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow at first, but go through the entire course and you will be right as rain.

Umair Kazi is Partner, Ishtehari.

Nabeel Qadeer, the author, “is among the pioneers of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Pakistan”, as mentioned in the book’s jacket. He has “interacted with students from more than 80 universities and over 1,500 startup founders across the country,” and this is what gives him a unique insight into the trials and tribulations of many hopefuls, battling external and internal challenges to get ahead.

Before turning to the book, I checked out his TEDx Talk Sifar ka Safar (Journey from 0 to 1) on YouTube. It sets up the format of the book quite nicely as the journey of the chapters takes you from 0 to 1.0, one decimal point at a time.

The Foreword is presented by Dr. Peter McInnes, a professor at the University of Strathclyde and a mentor to Qadeer. In speaking of the timeliness of the book, he says: “(It) has as much to do with the need for each and every one of us to closely consider the qualities we embody in our daily lives. Why so? Because I honestly believe that the biggest obstacle we face as we consider a change of direction lies in coming to terms with and transforming the selves we have become”.

Who would disagree these are challenging times that call for us to reinvent ourselves? However, how do we approach a subject – ourselves – that has been marinated and baked in conventional wisdom, conditioning and mental chains? Voila! Qadeer to the rescue.

The 11 chapters that make up the book follow a logical sequence with a build up to the key question: “What is the one thing that is still keeping you from creating your impact?” Having said this, I found the formatting to be a bit difficult to navigate. At first glance, I felt like this was a scientific treatise (perhaps Qadeer is a scientist?) with diagrams and highlights. However, as I waded in further, the subject matter took over and here we are.

The format of the book has three major segments, broken down as Reflection, Focus and Execute. We will look over each chapter to give you a better (simplistic) idea of what you are in for:

1. Ch. 0 – You Don’t Exist: Qadeer explains that human nature is like water; it will take up any shape or form it is put in and the form is to be built up in your mind. How tall and strong this form can stand depends on the stability of the foundation on which you make it. He qualifies that the basic unit of any structure as Comparison, Intent and Effort. Then adding Context to these three, will give you perspective.

2. Ch. 0.1 – Back to Basics: Here the author presents a Classification of Self through a variety of segments: Values & Beliefs; Experiences & Choices; Feelings & Emotions and Perceptions & Thoughts. Most of these lie well below the waterline of our consciousness, which means we are usually unaware of their influence over everything we do. “Thoughts manifest into realities. If you are giving space to a destructive thought in your mind, it is affecting the way you feel towards a situation.”

3. Ch. 0.2 More than Looking in the Mirror: This chapter takes you through the stages of Reflection: Recall – Realise – Regret – Rectify – Repeat. A detailed explanation of each stage follows, helping you with introspection and awareness.

4. Ch. 0.3 Exposing Yourself: A diagram explains how one can move from Comfort zone to Growth zone by way of Fear and Learning zones. This is a famous illustration used by many in the learning trade. It goes on to explain how the ego gets in the way of everything.

5. Ch. 0.4 It’s a Complex Situation: The Insecurities and Fears (complexes) that surround our ego end up as displays of Superiority and Inferiority. Our complexes manifest themselves in our outlook, attitude to money, power and even fame. Are we going forward or holding ourselves back?

6. Ch. 0.5 Drawing the Arrow: “Decision is a conscious choice. Decision-making is a capability not all of us have nurtured. When our practice to make controlled choice is weak, you are seldom able to make an informed decision.” Again, our conditioning (below the waterline) manifests itself through our values and choices.

7. Ch. 0.6 Missing the Point: This chapter focuses on optimising your use of time, including spending time on your own. An illustration to highlight a higher purpose for our lives is depicted as: “Who you were sent to be”; “Who you could have become” and “Who you became.” “Our wrong choices take us away from that state and make us play below our potential.”

8. Ch. 0.7 Effective Immediately: We are now in the Execution stage of the book, practically putting the preceding concepts into practice. A useful tool offered that can be used in professional and personal settings are the 4E’s of Effectiveness. The balance you strike between your Ego, Esteem, Empathy and Execution are what will steer you towards an effective life.

9. Ch. 0.8 Walking the Talk: Creating a culture for your organisation is easier when you model the behaviors yourself. Examples from Qadeer’s own ventures and the Toyota Motor Corporation illustrate the value of Respect as a key enabler of success.

10. Ch. 0.9 The Last Few Miles: “Mindfulness” is the sign of leadership and great leaders always display this quality. A mindful person is aware of Time, Thoughts, Words, Actions and Perceptions at all times. In addition, the traits exhibited are: Focus, Sharpness, Bravery, Composure and Unpredictability.

11. Ch. 1.0 The Missing Link: The journey into the self is complete when we deploy faith in whatever we do. However, even at other times, faith is a great source of comfort and motivation that is, unfortunately, ignored by most of us.

Although this book was a difficult one to navigate, it is filled with useful tools and motivational examples, many of which local readers can relate to. It takes less that one second to make a decision to change an aspect of your life; pulling the trigger to do so takes courage. This is how we move from the zones of Comfort to Fear to Learning to Growth.

Leon Menezes is a professor-of-practice at IBA Karachi.

“Since the pandemic we have begun manufacturing and exporting remdesivir injections… the demand for drugs and personal protective equipment (PPE) has increased across the globe and we are exporting these items… We have decided to capitalise on the opportunity created because of the pandemic and plan to increase the country’s pharma exports by one billion dollars annually to five billion dollars in five years.”

Indeed, Pakistan’s pharma exports have been increasing for the last couple of years. Pakistan shipped drugs and other pharmaceutical products worth $214.5 million during the last fiscal year, up by 6.2% from $202 million in FY 2018-19. Furthermore, according to the State Bank of Pakistan, pharma exports also escalated by a whopping 27.2% to $162.7 million during the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal year, during the period between July and January – from $127.9 million a year ago.

Conversations with several top executives of multinational and local pharmaceutical companies reveal that several factors, including higher costs of production, shortage of scientists and engineers, lack of R&D facilities and, more importantly, excessive government controls over drug prices, are impeding investments in the modern plants and equipment needed for global quality certifications and exports.

Yet, how realistic is it to expect pharma exports to spike by five billion dollars in just five years, riding on the temporary ‘opportunity’ created by the global health crisis? Not in the least, everyone, except Dr Rauf, will tell you, terming the claim as ludicrous.

As the CE of a pharmaceutical company (requesting anonymity) put it: “What kind of magic wand does DRAP have? The pandemic offers limited and temporary opportunities, if at all, to increase exports and that too only in unregulated markets, where price matters more than quality. If Pakistan has been able to manufacture and export remdesivir injections and PPE, it was because of a one-time sudden increase in global demand, owing to the pandemic. Once the demand peters out, our exports will decline.”

Out of almost 750 pharmaceutical companies currently operating in Pakistan, none have their plants certified by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the foremost requirement to increase pharma exports from any developing country to strictly regulated markets worldwide. Only one company, Pacific Pharmaceuticals, has so far been successful in obtaining the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority) of the UK and CGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practices) certifications to ship some of their products to the UK and Germany.

According to Dr Qurutul Ain Irfan, Vice President, Pacific Pharmaceuticals, “We are the first and only Pakistani company exporting our products to Chile, Germany, Peru and the UK, because we have obtained the required certifications. It took nine long years of hard work and heavy investment in our plant to obtain the certification.”

Most industry sources say pharma companies are not interested in acquiring expensive FDA and MHRA certifications because the government does not offer them any incentives, nor does it facilitate them in such an endeavour.

“No one bothers to put in so much effort, time and money to get these certifications. Besides, it is easier to ship medicines to unregulated markets like Afghanistan, Africa and Central Asia,” says Dr Irfan. She adds that the government does not keep its word. “It has not given our company the price rise of 10 to 15% it promised to give the companies which obtain international quality certifications as an incentive. So why should anyone bother about exporting to the US or the UK or Europe?”

Conversations with several top executives of multinational and local pharmaceutical companies reveal that several factors, including higher costs of production, shortage of scientists and engineers, lack of R&D facilities and, more importantly, excessive government controls over drug prices, are impeding investments in the modern plants and equipment needed for global quality certifications and exports. “There is huge potential for exporting finished pharmaceutical products from Pakistan to regulated markets. But for this to happen, the government must provide incentives,” Dr Irfan concludes.

Osman Khalid Waheed, CEO, Ferozesons Laboratories, blames strict government controls over drug pricing and weak regulation of the industry for the stunted growth of the country’s pharmaceutical sector and its low level of exports. “If we have not been able to develop our export potential, it is because of the weak regulatory environment and government controls over drug pricing. Government regulations are limited only to controlling drug pricing, instead of ensuring quality or encouraging competition. Only the provision of a stable and predictable price regime for the industry will trigger new investment and growth and position the industry for improved exports. In order to export our products to the regulated, quality conscious markets, we need to invest in our plants, which is not possible in a regulatory environment where the regulator does not differentiate between high-quality products and inferior products.”

Waheed is of the view that DRAP should focus on regulating the industry to ensure quality and deregulate drug prices except in cases of essential, life-saving medicines, to create competition.

The drug price controls have also forced many multinationals to sell their assets and leave the country, many of which then consolidated their operations in Bangladesh, where regulations and price controls are less stifling and the cost of production is lower. This has resulted in a significant reduction in foreign direct investment in Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry and badly affected technology transfer, crucial to adopt CGMP.

According to him, India is a major exporter of pharmaceuticals because it deregulated drug pricing in 1982. As a result, India is the largest supplier of generic drugs globally and its pharmaceutical industry provides over 50% of the global demand for various vaccines, 40% of the generic demand in the US and 25% of all medicines in the UK. Currently, over 80% of the antiretroviral drugs used globally to combat AIDS are supplied by Indian companies and its pharmaceuticals exports stood at $16.3 billion in FY 2020-21. In recent years, even Bangladesh has made significant strides in modernising its pharmaceutical industry by liberalising its drug pricing mechanisms and is now exporting drugs to Australia, Canada, Europe and the US as well as to low- and middle-income nations.

The drug price controls have also forced many multinationals to sell their assets and leave the country, many of which then consolidated their operations in Bangladesh, where regulations and price controls are less stifling and the cost of production is lower. This has resulted in a significant reduction in foreign direct investment in Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry and badly affected technology transfer, crucial to adopt CGMP.

Imran Ahmad Khan, CEO and MD, Bayer Pakistan, for his part, pointed out that government policies are vital to increase exports. “In the pharma sector, we hope for a more pro-business regulatory regime, where ease of doing business is improved. More dialogue and consultation with industry stakeholders on vital matters, such as drug pricing would help move things in the right direction. Processes can be simplified and expedited and it would be beneficial for companies to have greater visibility of these processes. Contract manufacturing or toll-manufacturing requirements can also be reviewed to allow for better utilisation of existing plants. Such measures will enable corporations, particularly MNCs, to sustain their operations in Pakistan, open up opportunities for further investment and boost exports.”

Clearly, unless the government creates a supportive regulatory environment, where investment and innovation can flourish, it would be better to forget about sustaining the present pharma export shipments, let alone increase them.

Nasir Jamal is Chief Reporter, Dawn Lahore. nasirjamal65@gmail.com

MARIAM ALI BAIG: What is the background to Martin Dow?
JAVED GHULAM MOHAMMAD: Martin Dow was founded in 1995; the company started with a small manufacturing base in Lahore in 2000. The ‘Big Breakthrough’ came in 2010, with the acquisition of the manufacturing facility of Roche Pharmaceuticals in Pakistan. From a small base with a revenue of Rs 300 million, we acquired a company worth three billion rupees. It was a very bold move by our founding chairman, M. Jawed Akhai, and the largest acquisition in the pharma industry at that time. Then in 2016, we acquired the shareholding of Merck Germany in Merck Pakistan and we now represent Merck in Pakistan, which includes their chemical business as well.

MAB: Is Martin Dow a national company or a multinational company?
JGM: We started as a national company, but in 2017 we acquired two manufacturing facilities in France and we do contract manufacturing for pharmaceuticals as well as nutraceutical products for our clients in Europe. We have a proper manufacturing base in France and a French team running the two plants.

MAB: Moving to Pakistan’s pharma industry in general, why is innovation so rare?
JGM: Pharmaceuticals are divided into innovator companies and branded generics. Innovators develop a new chemical entity which is then patented for 15 to 20 years. Once the patent expires, the generic, which is a kind of ‘me too’, enters the market at a substantially lower price. Martin Dow is into generics, so from a commercial point of view, our reach is much wider in terms of distribution. Pakistan has a population of approximately 220 million people, yet the overall size of the pharmaceutical market is just three billion dollars. If you look at markets such as the Philippines, which has a population base of 100 million, the size of their pharmaceutical industry is six billion dollars. Same for Vietnam; a population of 80 to 100 million people and a market size of five billion dollars. The accessibility of medicine in Pakistan is very low. First of all, because the private market accounts for 80% to 90% of the share and 10% is supported by the government. So accessibility to patients is very low. Developing a new chemical entity requires a huge level of investment. Firstly, you need to carry out lots of experiments and once you arrive at a product, you have to perform massive clinical trials to establish the efficacy and the safety of the product. Those trials are extremely expensive as they involve multiple institutions, different countries, races and cultures, because you are not producing a product for a particular country or region and this is why most of the research comes from Australia, Europe, Japan and the USA.

MAB: Is India involved in this kind of research?
JGM: India is not doing the research required to develop a new chemical entity. However, research is not limited to finding new chemical entities. When the patent of the innovator expires and the generic product can be developed, the challenge is to ensure the product is equivalent to the innovator in all aspects. This is also a science; it involves arriving at the correct formulation based on research and development and in this respect India is quite strong. Once a patent has expired in the US, the Indian companies will move in; 80% of prescriptions move from innovators to generics, because generics have a price advantage of 50% to 60% of the cost of the innovator product and with a quality equivalency comparable to the innovator. Pakistan has over 700 pharmaceutical companies and we are basically a generic industry. If we improve our standards and prove that our products are equivalent to that of an innovator, we will have a huge opportunity to export.

"Health in Pakistan as a percentage of the GDP is one of the lowest in the world"

MAB: What percentage of the products manufactured in Pakistan are exported?
JGM: Our exports are worth 250 to 300 million dollars; that is the total 700 pharmaceutical companies Pakistan are generating, while potentially our exports can go up to five billion dollars.

MAB: What needs to be done to boost exports?
JGM: The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) is coming up with more stringent standards and it is very important that they set the standards every company has to follow in order to produce quality products. The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association as well as the Pharma Bureau are determined about the fact that we need to bring our quality to the level of international standards and export our products.

MAB: What do the pharmaceutical companies need to do to meet those standards?
JGM: They need to upgrade their technical their manufacturing facilities and their quality systems.

MAB: This will involve further investments?
JGM: Yes, although I think that the only thing that is stopping the pharmaceutical companies is the fact that prices in Pakistan are very low, even compared to Bangladesh or India. If all the manufacturers are able to make a reasonable return on their investments, they will invest in order to improve their standards to access a bigger market. At the moment, we have a highly fragmented industry consisting of 700 companies catering to a market worth only three billion dollars.

MAB: How are these companies surviving?
JGM: They don’t have the volumes; they are trying to manage their basic manufacturing facilities, and unless the overall market size increases or prices go up, they will not be able to invest in improving their standards. Health in Pakistan as a percentage of the GDP is one of the lowest in the world and this has to increase so that patients can have access to healthcare and the overall market size increases. With scale, profitability will increase, costs will go down and the patient benefits in the end. At the moment, the top 50 companies account for almost 90% of the total pharmaceutical market. In terms of exports, the highly regulated markets are Australia, Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE and the US. Then there are semi-regulated markets and the low regulated markets. So far, our exports are targeted towards the semi and low regulated markets because we are unable to meet the standards of the highly regulated markets. Once you move into the regulated markets you get better prices for your products. We need to gradually improve our manufacturing standards to the level where we can penetrate the highly regulated markets.

MAB: Are you saying that at the moment pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing to a lower standard than what would be required in the highly regulated markets?
JGM: We are complying with the standards set by DRAP, but there are a few areas where we could improve. For example, bioequivalence studies, which prove that a generic product is equivalent to the innovator, are not a requirement in Pakistan, but they are the first requirement in order to export to Europe or the US.

MAB: It could be argued that DRAP have some credibility problems with respect to enforcing standards.
JGM: There has been a significant improvement in DRAP over the years. All international regulatory bodies require approval from the Pharmaceutical Inspection Corporation Scheme (PICS), so in order for DRAP to be approved by PICS, they will have to follow all the standards prevailing in the international markets and if DRAP is moving in that direction, all the pharmaceutical companies will do so as well. Exporting does not necessarily mean manufacturing and marketing products. Another attractive opportunity is Contract Research and Manufacturing (CRAM). If a pharma product is approved by the European regulatory body, then European companies will be able to manufacture that product in Pakistan. Our cost base is lower compared to any European country, we have the manpower and the talent pool and we can offer these advantages to European companies, which will then be able to invest more on innovation and marketing while we do the manufacturing for them at a much lower cost. The overall CRAM market is very big and Pakistan needs a strong manufacturing base to compete successfully; we cannot survive on trading because we need to cater to a population of 220 million people.

Mariam Ali Baig was in conversation with Javed Ghulam Muhammed.
For feedback: aurora@dawn.com

The government calls the Pakistani pharmaceutical sector the ‘Sunshine Industry’, but we are not sure how bright the sun is shining. The policies that have proved successful in the region should be modelled, formulated and implemented in Pakistan. While concerns in this sector were prevalent long before, Covid-19 highlighted some alarming systemic issues that need to be addressed as a priority. Major upgrades are required at the state level to bring our pharmaceutical sector at par with the rest of the world. This includes boosting regional trade, reassessing the tax and governance system, focusing on primary healthcare, establishing quality control mechanisms and being environmentally conscious, among many others. It is high time we are prepared for locally manufacturing biologicals, as although the virus has been kind to our genes, we must not take any pandemic lightly or expect that another pandemic will not strike again.

API Vs Local Production – The Right Fit for Pakistan

Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) is a capital, energy and technology intensive process. It requires downstream channels and industry, chemicals and engineering, an area where Pakistan is weak. Therefore, the government’s support in setting up vaccine manufacturing, oncology and biological plants will add value while contributing to reducing imports, as well as contributing to exports. Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry can benefit from importing APIs and investing in local production of the finished product, as opposed to directly importing the finished product, as this would drive the costs higher and ultimately prices. In Pakistan, the pharma industry manufactures 90% of medicines locally, employing millions of people, which if imported, would be very expensive. Also, given the current constraints the pharma industry faces, it is more financially feasible to continue importing APIs instead of opting for an approach to manufacture them locally. Many would argue that producing APIs locally can resolve the pricing issue; however, this is a half-baked notion. It can take up to 21 reactions to produce APIs with highly sophisticated machinery and solvents that are also imported, making the entire process very costly.

Tax and Governance System

Pakistan has one of the highest tax rates in the world and no provision of services to back it – with 37% Corporate Tax and 17% General Sales Tax (GST). The Tax to GDP ratio and the Tax Per Capita is the lowest in the region which has huge implications on health, industry, science, and technology.

Low Percentage of GDP Spent

Pakistan spends less than half of what the World Health Organization recommends nations should spend on healthcare. We also spend less than half of what most middle-income countries spend on health as a percentage of the GDP. The government must increase the percentage of GDP spending on health from the current 2.6% to six percent. They must also implement import substitution to increase manufacturing as a percentage of GDP from the current 13.5% to 25%. This might not be possible to achieve until and unless we increase the tax to GDP and tax to population ratios to match other countries. Pakistan can only improve its healthcare sector if it improves its Gross National Income and education, and has bilateral trade within the region. If we look at Pakistan’s GDP as a share of India’s GDP, we see a major decline from 14% in 2006 to nine percent in 2020.

Environmentally Unfriendliness

Since time immemorial, we have been draining natural resources and not giving anything back. Covid-19 has made us realise this more than ever. We now know that there is a limit to how much we can extract from the earth and how total depletion will thrust the planet into further turmoil with increased food insecurity, flooding, wildfires, famine and extensive human displacement. As we enter the post-Covid-19 era, we need to think about paying back to the system and investing in the prevention of disease rather than just the cure, starting with an investment in primary healthcare. Leaders from a broad spectrum have opined on this matter – from the Pope to esteemed scholars like Noam Chomsky – and have been warning us that climate change is the single biggest danger to mankind. In this regard, corporate leaders, corporations and governments must lead from the front and implement the legislation already on the books to ensure that all the effluents produced in offices, factories and homes are treated and turned into clean water before they are released into the city water system. There are only a handful of companies in Pakistan that have been designed in compliance with the globally recognised Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification that is supervised, audited and granted by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) in the USA. Pharmaceutical manufacturers need to invest in environmentally friendly practices to lower carbon emissions.

Poor Primary Healthcare System

Covid-19 has made us revisit our approach towards investment in primary healthcare and channel resources towards primary healthcare systems. We need to focus on disease prevention and disease surveillance rather than disease treatment, so that we can control the disease before it turns into an outbreak. We must invest and improve primary health, which is rated very low compared to the rest of the region. Meanwhile, tertiary health is bursting due to a poor primary health system. This pandemic has taught us that disease does not discriminate between anyone and knows no boundaries or geographical borders. Hence, the only way to tackle health crises of such a scale in the future is to increase funding on healthcare, both at a country level and globally, with a special emphasis on supporting the most vulnerable sections of the population. The solution lies in making primary healthcare more robust through awareness about improving lifestyle and consumption patterns.

Dr Wajiha Javed is Head of Public Health and Research, Getz Pharma.

Wajiha Farooq is Management Trainee, Getz Pharma.

Muhammad Ahsan Arif is Executive, Digital Communications, Getz Pharma.

publichealth@getzpharma.com

In March 2010, a report by McKinsey, a global management company, identified Pakistan’s pharmaceutical sector as a ‘Sunrise Industry’ which could “lead Pakistan to economic prosperity.”

The report, which was commissioned by the Planning Commission of Pakistan and the Asian Development Bank, suggested that in order to develop the pharma sector, four areas should be focused upon: introducing drug pricing reforms, providing incentives for investment for FDA certified plants (to gain access to more export markets), allowing contract manufacturing without limitations and enforcing high quality standards.

The report highlighted the fact that pharma companies’ profit margins were decreasing, due to which the industry faced multiple challenges, including reduced availability of lower priced medicines due to tight price controls, and opined that price rationalisation should come into play to trigger investment in the industry.

Fast forward to over a decade later and it seems that there has been no real progress, and the reasons for this, according to several stakeholders of the pharma industry that Aurora spoke to, lies in the fact that there is no consistent government policy in place to enable the pharma industry to reach its potential.

Inconsistent Pricing Policies Prices of medicines were frozen between 2001 and 2013. Then in 2013, price increases were allowed by the government only to be revoked following public outcry. In 2015, due to judicial intervention, a Drug Pricing Policy came into being.

According to an article published in Dawn on October 16, 2016, titled The Politics of Medicine Pricing, Dr Muhammad Aslam, CEO, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), at the time was quoted as saying “a new formula for drugs pricing was evolved… according to which yearly prices will increase by 50% of the consumer price index [CPI].”

The policy was revised in 2018 and currently, the prices of ‘essential’ drug prices can be increased by up to seven percent and ‘non-essential’ or ‘non-scheduled’ drugs by 10% every year. However, it is important to note that such increases do not come into effect automatically every year; they take much more than the mandated time to be approved by the Cabinet and it is not uncommon for them to be revoked sporadically. Furthermore, retailer and distributor margins are built into the price of drugs which amount to 15% and 10% respectively and this further affects profit margins.

Zahid Saeed, MD, Indus Pharma, points out that the method of using the CPI as a barometer to implement price increases is not ideal. “Last year, the inflation rate was at least 12%; therefore, with such caps in place, such increases are not adequate.” He points out that this way of classifying medicines was established by the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure that essential drugs were always available in government hospitals globally. He adds that at some point, even ‘non-essential’ drugs become essential for patients, which is why this way of classifying them is not practical. “Our government is not able to purchase medicines for the public from its funds, so as an alternative they say they are making them affordable by squeezing prices. Ideally, they should make them available free of charge at their hospitals.”

Stakeholders are of the opinion that the industry is “overregulated” as every single drug is price controlled. Furthermore, they point out that due to the devaluation of the rupee over the last decade they have been impacted greatly, as approximately 80 to 90% of their raw materials are imported, not to mention their machinery (which has to be updated regularly in compliance with international standards) and other essential equipment and technology. Therefore, the CPI adjustment does not affect them in a positive way.

A question that does arise is that if prices were to increase regularly, would that not further make medicines unavailable to the poorer segments of society? Stakeholders feel that this would lead to competition which would result in lower prices.

According to Osman Khalid Waheed, CEO, Ferozsons Laboratories, “on the surface that argument seems to hold, but if you dive a little deeper, it doesn’t. In most countries, governments take the responsibility of providing healthcare. Our argument is that the poor should get medication for free – that is a responsibility that the government should fulfil – not the manufacturers. No matter how cheap medicines are, they will still be too expensive for people at the bottom of the pyramid.”

He adds: “If 50 quality players are competing against themselves, it is a good enough mechanism to ensure price controls through competition, rather than artificial enforcement. The problem arises when someone takes an ad hoc decision that has no linkage to economic reality, and imposes it on manufacturers.” He points out that Pakistan deregulated the industry in the nineties, but the decision was reversed within months. “India deregulated after us and never looked back.”

Consequently, the value of the industry has been affected. According to Tauqeer Ul Haq, Chairman, PPMA, it has grown from Rs 300 billion in 2017 to Rs 501 billion in 2021, but remains more or less stagnant in dollar terms due to the depreciation of the rupee and is currently valued at an estimated $3.1 billion. (According to several estimates, of the 650-750 pharma companies in Pakistan, the top 100 companies capture approximately 95% of the market and the remainder account for the remaining five percent.) All these factors combined have resulted in profit margins declining substantially, which in turn, hinders the industry in several ways.

THE MNC ‘Exodus’

According to an interview in Business Recorder on August 16, 2019, Ayesha Tammy Haq, Executive Director, Pharma Bureau (which represents MNC pharmaceutical companies) stated that “MNCs were 80% of the market share not so long ago and now they are 40%.” She tells Aurora: “In Pakistan pharma is an orphan child and gets the short end of a very long stick. If you cannot increase your prices, you close down your company and leave.”

This is the reason why MNCs prefer to set up their business in other countries such as Bangladesh and India, where pricing is not controlled in such a stringent manner. According to Pakistan’s Pharmaceutical Industry 2017 – a report compiled by PPMA: “the failure to enforce copyright and patent laws is also thought to be another detriment to foreign investment coming into Pakistan. Since drugs can be easily copied and sold without proper check, it makes little sense for would-be investors to introduce their products in this kind of a non-protected environment.”

“If I have developed a drug and have a patent for it, no one can use the formula to make a generic version. However, what has happened in several instances is that MNCs have registered their patents, but they have somehow been leaked due to a lack of strict patent and copyright laws,” points out Haq. In this respect, she cites contract manufacturing (outsourcing) without limitations as a possible solution for increasing manufacturing for both local and international companies, as currently DRAP issues contract manufacturing licenses for a limited amount of time. Contract manufacturing entails a larger company outsourcing a certain function of their plant (such as manufacturing a drug) to a smaller company (after they upgrade their facilities). The larger company then trains their employees and in doing so transfers training and technology, thus freeing up their capacity to manufacture other products. “Contract manufacturing is the future in terms of putting the industry on the rails. The local industry has come up due to contract manufacturing, as they did not have manufacturing capabilities initially – only the MNCs did. We have been talking to DRAP for a long time now, and they have understood the importance of what we have been saying for a long time and will be issuing licences for five years.”

Shortage of Medicines

The financial non-viability of manufacturing essential low-priced drugs has led to several companies halting production which has, at times, resulted in their unavailability which leads to the use of imported substitutes which are priced higher. Another serious repercussion of this shortage is that doctors are forced to prescribe newer and stronger versions, which are not only more expensive, but increase drug resistance to older versions. Furthermore, shortages lead to an influx of smuggled drugs which are more expensive or, even worse, sub-standard or counterfeit.

Stakeholders are therefore of the opinion that DRAP should, rather than fixating on pricing, pay more attention to quality control, which it allegedly does not, leaving the function of quality control to the pharmaceutical companies.

Lack of Innovation

Most pharma companies do not have the resources to have dedicated R&D departments. According to Waheed “R&D is extremely expensive; one in 13 drugs makes it to the market after companies spend billions of dollars on it. This is impossible for us given that our market is barely worth three billion dollars. Unless you have a more deregulated method that allows companies to earn and set aside money for R&D, the process will not begin.”

Adding to the lack of development is the fact that approvals for new products take a lot of time. “If Indus Pharma decides to launch a new product now, we will probably get the approval for it years later. By that time the product will be obsolete. We need responses in specified periods of time, be it 15 days or two months,” says Saeed.

Another reason for lack of innovation is a dearth of research programmes in universities. In countries like the UK and the US and even India, a significant number of drugs and vaccines are initially developed at higher education institutions and pilot projects are conducted there. For example, the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19 was developed at Oxford University. In Saeed’s opinion, curriculums in Pakistani universities and colleges are not in line with the requirements for most pharma companies and this is why they have to spend a substantial amount in training them. “Students have to be trained about things such as the regulatory environments, whereas ideally they should come in and add value to our companies, but this is not the case, even among people who have PhDs.”

Another aspect of innovation would be for pharmaceutical companies to attain US FDA approval, which would allow them to export their products to other parts of the world. (See Strangled Potential on page 20.) However, this is not possible due to the fact that the costs for such certifications are extremely high. For context, in 2016, India and Bangladesh had 201 and five FDA approved plants.

The DRAP Effect

Ultimately, all these issues seem to arise from the lack of a uniform policy from DRAP. However, despite their grievances, stakeholders point out that the cause of the problem is that DRAP has not been given autonomy. Waheed says, “DRAP as an organisation is not filled with incompetent people or people who are not interested in quality regulation – they need to be empowered. CEO and directors are appointed and reappointed every three months and this undermines their authority. This needs to change; they are well-intentioned and competent people stuck in a system that does not allow for good decision-making.”

Given the above, what are the solutions if Pakistan’s pharma industry is to become a Sunrise Industry? First and foremost, all stakeholders agree that the pharma sector should be given the status of an industry and be governed by the Ministry of Commerce or Finance (the case in other countries) rather than the Ministry of Health. Another would be to decrease the number of drugs that are regulated by DRAP in terms of their price, which is the case in India and Bangladesh, where only a percentage of essential drugs are price controlled. Haq and Saeed are of the opinion that the government should provide incentives and subsidies to pharma as it does to other industries, as this could lead to an increase in manufacturing and exports. “We have more potential than other industries such as textiles, agriculture and leather, in terms of exports or otherwise. They are dependent on ‘weather and water’; we are a synthetic industry and can multiply our production very quickly,” says Saeed. Waheed, however, disagrees and opines that subsidies create artificial situations and that it is “far better that the government supports us through large scale procurement and medicine for the poor. That will help us scale up and become more competitive – everybody wins in that scenario.”

Ultimately, if the pharma sector is to attain the status of a Sunrise Industry, it is imperative that a forward-thinking and holistic government policy comes into place. A policy that is enforced actively and rather than just fixating on price controls, focuses on encouraging R&D, increasing exports, enforcing copyright and patent protection, reducing the use of counterfeit and smuggled drugs, and increasing the duration for contract manufacturing licences. Unless that happens, the pharma sector, which has always had the potential to grow exponentially, will never reach its potential.

When his physician told Rehman Gull, 42, that he needed a minor surgical procedure to cure his back pain, he didn’t have to worry about how to cover his hospital expenditures, surgeon fees, lab tests and medicines. The next morning, he checked into a private hospital in Peshawar, underwent the procedure and returned home after three days without paying a single paisa.

“I just had to produce my CNIC to prove that I am a permanent resident of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) to avail the facility of free hospitalisation and treatment,” says Gull, a resident of Jhagra village, who works as an office attendant at a media company in Peshawar.

KPK’s Sehat Sahulat Program (SSP) provides universal access to healthcare to permanent residents of Pakistan’s North-Western province like Gull and their families, which they could not otherwise afford. The program entitles 7.2 million families free in-patient treatment for up to one million rupees per family a year. “They only need to present their CNIC at the SSP counters set up at the 400 ‘empanelled’ private and public-sector hospitals across the province – and in Islamabad, Punjab and Karachi for non-resident families,” says Zain Raza, an analyst working with the Internal Support Unit of the provincial Health and Finance Department.

Gull is not the only one from his extended family to have availed the free health facility. His sister-in-law was recently treated for heart issues. Another family member underwent a minor procedure two months earlier. “This is an amazing facility for the poor and low-income people like myself,” says Gull, the father of four children. “Now we don’t have to worry about money when we need hospitalisation.”

How It Began

In 2012, the Federal Government introduced a micro health insurance scheme for the beneficiaries of its flagship social protection program, the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP, recently rebranded by the PTI government as Ehsaas) under which the poorest of the poor and their families were provided monthly stipends. Taking a cue from this, Punjab rolled out its own initiative and enrolled 75,000 poor families between 2012 and 2014. In 2015, the Federal Government launched a national health programme in the former FATA districts of KPK – with Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan adopting it later. This programme has been extended to Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

PTI-led KPK, however, chose to independently launch and pursue its own project in four districts with support from Germany and then expanded the scope to the entire population, with the government assuming the costs for all citizens. This decision was made to avoid ‘exclusion and inclusion errors’ owing to the outdated BISP 2011 poverty survey data.

“Setting up a social health protection scheme is a step-by-step process. KPK launched its pilot in 2015, targeting the poorest 21% in four districts. A year later, the Provincial Government decided to invest its own money to expand the coverage to all districts and the poorest 50% of the population. And from November 2020, the health insurance scheme has been available to every resident and non-resident citizen of the province, irrespective of their income,” says Riaz Tanoli, Project Director for the provincial SSP.

“In addition to the provincial programme, a similar federal facility is being provided to the 1.2 million people of the former FATA districts where each family is entitled to free treatment worth Rs 750,000 per year.” According to Tanoli, the province plans to expand the health insurance coverage to liver and kidney transplants. “For this we are in the process of signing an agreement with a hospital in Islamabad.”

How the Program Works

To avoid complications, KPK adopted a single-payer model, whereby it fully subsidises the annual premium of Rs 2,849 per family from its health budget and contracted the State Life Insurance Company (SLIC) to manage the healthcare expenditure as a third-party administrator. The insurer negotiates provider contracts with the empanelled hospitals, including the treatment packages and the amount of reimbursement. Data on the beneficiaries and their use of services are managed by NADRA and SLIC, which is also responsible for monitoring and evaluating the performance of the empanelled hospitals and excluding poor performers from the contracts.

“The contract has been awarded to SLIC through national competitive bidding. Eight firms applied and three were shortlisted,” Tanoli says. “The premium is paid through the government budget. We allocated Rs 10 billion for the ongoing financial year. The premium amount is likely to rise to Rs 21 billion in the next fiscal year.” According to him, at least 75,000 people have so far taken advantage of this health insurance, whichspared them a combined expenditure of two billion rupees between November 2020 and February 2021.

Tanoli says that the government paid the insurance company the entire premium for the year in a lump sum. “Under the contract, the company is entitled to keep 15% of the saving (unspent amount from the total premium) and return the remaining 85% to the government at the end of the year. If the expenditure crosses the agreed premium amount, the risk is borne by the insurer.”

The Provincial Government feels that it can easily manage the costs for the next three years. “After that period, we will have a fair idea of the rate of increase in expenditure, as more people become aware of the scheme and begin using it,” contends Tanoli. He is of the view that the scheme will ultimately reduce government expenditure on public-sector hospitals going forward, as they start earning money from their contracts with the insurer, leading to a significant reduction in the subsidy amount the government has to pay them from its budget.

Punjab Lags Behind

Pursuing the KPK model, the Usman Buzdar government plans to extend the coverage of its health insurance project to the entire population of Punjab by the end of 2021, although so far it lags behind KPK. According to officials, Punjab has so far succeeded in bringing health coverage to the 5.3 million out of nine million families living below the poverty line in 28 districts in two years. “We are increasing the scope of the scheme and issuing health insurance cards to eligible families. So far, 290,000 in-patients have availed free medical treatment and we are quickly moving towards universal health coverage,” says a health department official. In Punjab, the government is paying SLIC a premium of Rs 1,998 per family to provide health coverage of Rs 720,000 per family per year. “Once we achieve universal coverage, the premium will go up and the expenditure ceiling for each family will be enhanced to one million rupees.”

The publicly funded SSP is an important step towards universal health coverage that delivers healthcare to everyone equally and free of cost. However, it is unlikely to meet its goal unless the provinces start investing in health infrastructure, bringing modern diagnostic and treatment facilities closer to the areas where the poor and vulnerable targeted under the scheme actually live. Unless the infrastructure is created, the majority of the people will remain excluded from the so-called universal health coverage.

Nasir Jamal is Chief Reporter, Dawn Lahore.
nasirjamal65@gmail.com

On the surface, there are a lot of problems with the series. For starters, it is written from a very male perspective for a female audience. Secondly, the pace is excruciatingly slow and recently, they have lost the plot. Despite these flaws, MPTH caught the nation’s imagination and how? You would have to be dead to have missed the MPTH outbreak on social media. Thousands of posts, memes, blogs and vlogs happily piggybacked on the serial to grab eyeballs. Was this the male #MeToo I wondered as a man appeared on a vlog to talk about his own real-life now former cheating wife?

So what is the MPTH X-Factor?

Firstly, the serial stars beautiful people. If there is any actor that conforms to all of Pakistan’s impossible beauty standards, it is the gorgeous Ayeza Khan who plays Mehwish. Then, there is the lean, mean Adnan Siddiqui, looking leaner and meaner as Shehwar and totally worthy of a couple of thousand heart eye emojis. Finally, there is the wide-eyed child actor Shees Sajjad Gul who plays Rumi and whose cuteness is fast eroding, thanks to the scary mature lines he has been given. Sadly, the protagonist Humayun Saeed needs work. But he is the producer so who is to argue about his casting? Secondly, every self-respecting drama serial needs a victim and in this case it is a man, which has helped MPTH gain a male following and given the writer a public platform to vent against women. Thirdly, and most importantly, it is how a bold premise has been fleshed out into a plot that confirms patriarchal stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most important character in MPTH: larger-than-life writer Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar. A divisive figure, Qamar is brash and misogynistic. Speaking about gender equality, he faced a lot of flak when he said in an interview: “If you wish to strive for equality, then kidnap men as well. Rob a bus, gang rape a man, so that I can understand what you (women) mean by equality.” And if that wasn’t enough, when Danish’s friend asks him to forgive Mehwish, he reminds her that “shirk toh khuda bhi maaf nahi karta.” Surely, there is law against whatever KRQ was trying to say? Any lawyers reading this?

So MPTH is what you get when Pakistan’s most vocal and chauvinistic TV writer expounds on his personal nightmare: a cheating wife. Is it any surprise that the man who is touted to be the best dialogue writer in Pakistan, wrote the loaded ‘Do takkey kee larki’ line? With that one line, he touched a raw nerve or your pulse, and undid a couple of years’ progress made by Pakistani women.

With a slow screenplay replete with lazy stereotypes about the poor, the rich, men and women, the saving grace is ace director Nadeem Baig, who captivates the audience by generating regular fodder for pop culture references. There was the pink nightie Mehwish wore on a business trip with her boss which sparked the ‘did they, didn’t they?’ debate. The do takkey wala dialogue. Not to forget two smartly inserted thappars, one by Danish to Shehwar and the other by a vengeful Maham to Mehwish. Baig makes KRQ palatable. But only just. The plot is still unfolding.

The serial wins mainly because it appeals to our inner do takka that loves everything bad, non PC and immoral. The writer revealed that the last episode will be over an hour long and has issued caution specifically for weak-hearted men: keep your medicines close at hand.

Shahrezad Samiuddin is a pop culture junkie and a scriptwriter. shahrezadsamiuddin@yahoo.com

Congratulations; you have just drawn the Volkswagen Beetle. But wait, you have also drawn EVERY Porsche 911 ever. Every Audi from 1990 to 2000. Squint, compress the height a bit and you have the Bugatti Veyron.

This, my friends, is the iconic shape informing dozens of iconic cars. The inherent balance of the shape meant that it enabled Audi to join BMW and Mercedes in the league of the world’s favourite car brands, away from the adequate-but-meh marque of the seventies and eightiess.

And it all started with the Beetle. Given that it has sold over 23 million units in 81 years and in 190 countries, symbolising love, peace and accessibility, the following two factoids will shock you.

First, it was designed by Ferdinand Porsche. Yes, THAT Porsche.

And - are you sitting down? - it was the brainchild of a little known political leader called Adolf Hitler, as a rejoinder to Ford’s Model T and the Mini. It went on to symbolise the Summer of Love and the Hippie movement in the sixties. It became a symbol of world peace – and democratised transportation for millions of families. The Beetle became hopelessly intertwined with The Beatles.

Is that the sound of your head exploding?

The Beetle began production in 1938 and then ceased, when VW became busy producing military vehicles like every other manufacturer. After the war the British took over the factory and the car began selling like hotcakes. In 1949 it was launched in the USA to a rousing reception. But what was so special about the Beetle, other than the shape?

Context. Every other car in that era was a hunk of metal and chrome, guzzling petrol and costing a fortune. The Beetle (like the Model T) did for cars what the printing press did for books and MP3s did for music. It provided a small and efficient car ideal for families, cheap to run, built like a tank and supremely reliable. Yes it looked odd at that time; but the ad campaigns run by VW celebrated that oddness and made it desirable. The 1959 advertising made the Bettle into an icon of counterculture for being so different from every other car on the market. Eight years later, Herbie the Love Bug did the rest. It represented life and the joy of making the full use of everything you have.

The original Beetle stopped production in USA and Europe, but it was still manufactured in Mexico and South America. A new version, called the New Beetle, was introduced in 1998 but didn’t quite light the world on fire, perceived as it was as a cynical grafting of a Beetle shaped body on a Golf platform. Which was exactly what it was; in the age of the internet you can’t hide laziness.

Yet, the Beetle laid the foundation of Volkswagen (now one of the biggest car companies in the world) for being a “people’s car”. Every subsequent successful VW model and arguably even the Golf, Polo and Passat, followed the same ethos: providing state-of-the-art engineering and design (and a driving experience and price that compared favourably to that of their rivals.

It was fitting that VW chose to send off the Beetle with its The Last Mile campaign; a campaign that was not about launching a new product or increasing sales, but a celebration of what had passed. The SUV beast killed this Beetle beauty.

Talha bin Hamid is an accountant by day and an opinionated observer of pop culture, an avid reader, a gamer and an all-around nerd by night. talhamid@gmail.com

The following hours are spent going through inventory and then an early run to the paint store to purchase the required spray paints for the day. Alas! That perfect shade of blue is not available and I have to buy some extra transparent cans to make my own colours. No worries, where there is a will there is always a way and life shall carry on. A quick load up into the car and I am on my way to give life to a generally drab wall. On my commute, I pass loads of city walls that are desperately calling out for some colours and I wish more people would come out and add some to these otherwise sad facades. I target my locations and set them for another time. At the moment, I need to be on time to meet my potential client and I am stuck in early morning rush hour traffic.  

I am finally there but the client is nowhere to be seen. Why, oh why, can’t folks be on time? I see my watch ticking by for the next 15 minutes and eventually she walks in fashionably late. We do a quick overview of what she has in mind for her company’s lobby wall. It’s a great idea that would add a lot of value to the space. We then come to the dreaded part: the money talk, which in this particular meeting seems to be like the meme featuring Life of Pi on one side and the guy with a bucket on his head on the other. Obviously, I am not waving my hands about doing magic here. It has taken over 20 years of experience to get to this point. We go back and forth and finally she agrees to my terms after I explain how the mural will add a lot more value to the venue. By this time, I am running a bit late for my commissioned project and head out in a rush. Sit in the car, buckle up and bolt off.   

Its 11:30 a.m. and I have to reach the other end of the city. I hope I am greeted by green lights along the way. I turn up the volume and think about what and how I intend to execute the next graffiti mural in order to keep the piece relevant to the branding of the venue, and give it impact so people who walk by will notice it and maybe hire me later. I finally reach the venue. It is a new upscale restaurant in DHA. I am greeted by the client and we have a run through over the graffiti piece and then with another cup of coffee, I start unpacking my paints, set the nozzles and then stare at the wall as if I just took a psychedelic pill as I envision the look and feel of the graffiti.

At this point, I am usually left alone and I strap on my gas mask and get on with the initial outlines, take a few steps back, cut and rectify anything that seems out of place and repeat the process until I am fully satisfied with what appears on the wall. At this point, I scramble through my container of gold (my graffiti nozzles, which are not available in Pakistan and are very expensive to import) and get on with the fillings and blasts of colours. Now come the tedious half shades, highlights and details. The part I am known for but the process that can take anywhere between a few hours and a few days, during which there are possibilities that I will forget everything around me, including meals.  

When done, it’s time to gladly collect my cheque from the client over a celebration meal, which generally comes with an invitation to the launch event, and then I am off to home with the remaining paint. Oh wait, I remember passing by that sad wall on the way here. It’s dark, it’s quiet and I have some paint left over. Let’s brighten up that wall, hopefully without getting caught, and then go home feeling accomplished.  

After a warm shower, I hit the sack and edit the pictures of the graffiti I did today and plan what time tomorrow I will go back and click a few photos of that wall in the street that made me feel 100% true to my roots as a graffiti artist.  

Always be true to the art and the art will be true to you. 

Neil Uchong is a Karachi-based graffiti artist. neiluchong@gmail.com.

You may have already noticed the increasing overlap between clients, publishers, platforms, in-house and (for lack of a better word) out-house agencies, where the new collaborative ecosystem includes opportunities for all participants. If the outlines seem blurred, that is because they are – as data is increasingly informing creativity, talent is being calibrated on a speed-to-market metric and the media is being coaxed back into the folds of creative thinking as a valuable partner and not an isolated event. If we collectively understand how to navigate the opportunities and challenges that this new ecosystem presents, we will be prepped and prepared to do our best work, right alongside a new world order that, until now, we never expected to work – or work with.

Here are three transformations to look out for in the new agency structure:

1. The rise of the in-house agency

That’s right. More creative talent is moving to the client side. While this may seem counter-intuitive to the agency model, recruiting agency people into marketing departments and dovetailing design talent into digital is increasingly necessary due to the sheer volume of delivering a business across digital and the speed-to-market required to achieve it. Having creative resources in-house leads to cost efficiencies, easy dialogue, consolidated brand knowledge and greater agility (as an extension of marketing) to upscale projects, campaigns or activations. But the spirit of collaboration means that in-house agencies will also work closely with external partners on a project-to-project basis, guided by the knowledge that outside expertise is valuable, diversity of opinion and perspective is important, and co-creation leads to more innovation. By counting on a holistic approach and harnessing the additive value of all partners, both legacy and direct-to-consumer brands can make sure that teamwork beats work.

2. Data works – until it doesn’t

What does the future look like? Some may say it looks like a megaton of data. Sadly, a lot of critical thinking and its strategic skill set have been compromised after a decade of transactional-oriented advertising that is putting data at the heart of communication. But humans are not spreadsheets. So while we must be open to data, it is just as important to bake magic into this science. Because if creative content is not magical, then no amount of data intelligence will help the brand succeed. Moreover, we must be careful not to get too complacent with data either. We must be vigilant and not let the numbers dictate the strategy while we validate the insights we derive from this science to co-create ideas for clients. And with the increasing commoditisation of data and third-party metrics, we must also remember not to consider these as a replacement for authentic insights. Insights which are instrumental in generating the data that everyone is after in the first place.

3. Give the talented a break

How do we get a skill set for today’s challenges? Try to find those who lead with curiosity and creativity. Look for people who ask for the ‘Why?” and you are already in the company of provocative and challenging viewpoints. When we break down the current, assembly-line infrastructure at agencies, we allow for everyone to participate with a roundtable perspective. Or use a T-shaped model where one person has specialist knowledge but others have a diversity of purview across industries, demographics and experiences to really pressure-test the ‘Whys?’ Data shows that more diverse teams show better results. Which means it is time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because that is what drives innovation. More importantly, now is the time to have honest conversations with the next generation because they have options: they can raise their own money, build their own ideas, be well-paid freelancers or upgrade to your competition. Better still, by giving new people an opportunity to experience the agency across-the-board before they settle into their preferred discipline will help them feel naturally cast into what they do best rather than feel designated into something they feel less passionate about.

Faraz Maqsood Hamidi is CE & CD, The D’Hamidi Partnership.

True! But for us Pakistanis, there is only one indulgence. Food! Pay a random visit to any eatery, any day of the week and you will see it thronged with customers waiting to satiate their palates, which only goes to show that inflation has not yet bitten into our gastronomic habits and that the business of food has thus far been recession resilient and will probably continue to be so.

Similar is the case at Café Chatterbox this afternoon. It is bustling with activity as guests enjoy their meals and the black-clad waiters rush around managing orders at different tables. Music plays in the background, intermittently disrupted by the noise of blenders, while a scent of coffee brewing fills the air.

I am sitting on the top floor across Naila Naqvi, the founder of Pie In the Sky, Café Chatterbox, Aztec Chocolate & Cake Boutique and Chatterbox Deli, sipping a frappuccino and listening intently (amid the noise and chatter) to her story. Of how as a young girl she had no idea what career path she would take, what led her into the culinary business and now that she has become a successful businesswoman, what plans she has in mind in terms of expansion and diversity.

“I kind of stumbled upon it I suppose,” she says, recalling the time when she had finished her A Levels from Karachi Grammar School and had a six month gap before beginning university.

“My mother worked for Behram Avari as his personal assistant and she asked him if he could fit me in somewhere as she didn’t want me sitting at home doing nothing.”

Avari Towers, back then had just opened. Their British Training Manager (“a very good guy”) developed a two-year management training programme, which Naqvi became a part of in January 1985. The programme entailed working in each and every department of the hotel; therefore, Naqvi worked in the laundry store, butcher shop, kitchen, the restaurants, front office, sales and even made beds and cleaned toilets.

“It was a complete course.”

Upon completion of the course, she accepted an offer to work at the hotel. However, she then won a scholarship to study hotel management in Singapore (Singapore Hotel Association, affiliated with L’ Ecole Hôteliére de Lausanne) and left for three years. She also did a certification in food and beverage management.

Three months on, she returned and resumed her job at Avari Towers, this time as food and beverage manager, working in banquets. It was during this time that she began supplying desserts she made at home to some of the restaurants.

“I had had my training, I knew about food cost and selling prices. I sort of got into desserts and people liked them.”

Naqvi married in 1999, after which she found it difficult to continue working at Avari.

“The hotel industry is very demanding; you could be working 15 hours a day at a stretch, which is very stressful.”

This was when her husband suggested she go into the baking business. She launched Pie in the Sky in 2001, offering a variety of cakes, brownies, pastries, basic white and brown breads, biscuits and chicken patties. Naqvi worked along other bakers she hired, using her own recipes, some of which are used to this day.

“The brownie recipe we use at Pie In The Sky is the same one I used as a child with my mum. A long time ago I gave my niece a cookbook and we baked a fudge cake and we still use that recipe as well as the one for sponge cake.”

Today, Pie In The Sky has 20 branches (19 across Karachi and one in Hyderabad). Upon asking why she didn’t branch out to other cities, Naqvi says she is not averse to the idea, but there is just so much to do in Karachi.

The bakery (which will celebrate 19 years in January) is close to her heart and she does not trust the franchise laws in Pakistan to do this just yet.

“I have worked very hard to build Pie In The Sky into what it is today. I was seven months pregnant with my son when I opened the first bakery and I sometimes wonder whether Pie In The Sky is my first baby!”

Long before she launched her bakery (even while in Singapore), she was mulling over the idea of opening a small café.

“I always thought it would be nice to have one at some point.”

Once the bakery opened its second and third branch, the kitchen moved out from Zamzama, leaving sufficient seating space, allowing Naqvi to launch her bakery café concept (a novel idea in Pakistan back then), which she named Café Chatterbox in 2008. For the café, she hired a consultant to develop the initial recipes, but beyond that she says a lot of the inspiration comes from travelling, which she does frequently.

“Now it is a very collaborative effort; chefs come up with ideas, give me something to taste and if it works we put it on the menu.”

Aztec Chocolate, her next project, was a natural progression as she had been doing desserts anyway.

“Our truffles at Pie In The Sky are very popular; we prepare them in the thousands for weddings, so I thought why not explore this option.”

Although she does agree that the retail market for chocolate is still not as developed as it is abroad and people here prefer mithai. This, in fact, led to the change in concept and now, Aztec is not just a chocolate shop but has expanded to a cake boutique plus a gifting solution. Their cakes and chocolates, along with fresh, imported flowers and macarons can be picked up for any occasion.

“We cater a lot to the corporate sector on Eid or New Year or when a company has reached a milestone; most are looking for an option other than mithai.”

Her most recent project is the Chatterbox Deli, a restaurant she opened 18 months ago and where she has tried to shift the focus towards healthier options. Talking about the current economic situation, Naqvi says that in terms of food they have not suffered as much as they thought they would, because we are a foodie nation, although at the back of everyone’s mind prices are an important consideration.

“No one is willing to pay Rs 200 for a chicken patty or Rs 500 for a chicken tikka. They would rather go somewhere cheaper.”

She adds that at Pie In The Sky, the focus remains on giving customers the best possible quality at the best cost and they try to absorb a lot of the inflation as competition is intense.

Expansion plans may not be immediate owing to volatile economic changes, but it’s on the cards; perhaps in another 18 to 20 months.

“In the meantime we will consolidate and weather out the storm.”

As for women who aspire to be the next Naila Naqvi, her advice is that passion is imperative.

“People don’t see the hard work, time and sacrifice one has to give. They don’t see the times when your outlet is open and the plates are ready but nothing is sold.”

Her advice is be patient, take baby steps and do not expect to make it big overnight.

A mother of two sons, one of whom has just started university, Naqvi tries to balance work and life as much as possible and in this respect pays tribute to her husband for always supporting her. She remembers missing her son’s first Eid because there were cakes to prepare (although her husband and the rest of the family joined her there), but she does not regret it.

“I did what I had to do and if I had to do it again I would. If you make a commitment to something like this, then you have to give it as much time as you must.”

However, it is an enigma as to how a decade that was traumatic for Pakistan in many ways saw such an explosion of cultural expressions. This curious aspect has been touched upon by Niilofur Farrukh in her introduction to Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade – A Memory That Cannot Find Rest. The decade witnessed the break-up of the country in December 1971, martial law in 1977 and the execution of a prime minister in 1979 – along with the proclamation of ordinances that discriminated against women and made them more vulnerable. Yet, there is hardly any field of culture and the arts where experiments and excellence were not present. Farrukh’s evocative piece attributes this phenomenon to the sense of optimism that (rightly or wrongly) many experienced after the coming into power of the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that adopted liberal policies towards the arts and culture.

Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade is a by-product of the marvellous exhibition on the same theme jointly curated by Niilofur Farrukh, Amin Gulgee and John McCarry in 2016, in which over 40 artists, with expertise in different mediums, participated. The three curators have jointly edited this compilation. The publication also documents the exhibition by reproducing the works of art displayed, adding an attractive and useful context to the articles that follow. The overwhelming feeling the book evokes – as did the exhibition – is one of nostalgia. Those visiting the exhibition and now going through the book would, depending on their age, inevitably recall the eventful decade – through rose-tinted glasses or not.

The scope of Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade is ambitious and as is the case where there are multiple writers, the quality of the contribution varies. However, it is a stupendous undertaking which the co-editors have completed quite creditably. By and large, there has been a fairly appropriate selection of contributors. Salima Hashmi, for one. She is an artist, a curator, a writer on art as well as a teacher. She is equally well-known for her work in theatre and in PTV in the seventies. In The Seventies – Tracing the Dreams, Hashmi begins by lamenting the loss of artists from East Pakistan who exercised a tremendous influence in the development of art in both parts of the country but were severed from us as a consequence of the civil war.

They include Zainul Abedin, Qayyum Chowdhury, Qamrul Hasan and Kibria among others. However, Shakir Ali, teaching at the National College of Arts, soon emerged as an inspiration for many young artists making their mark in the seventies. Among them were Zahoorul Akhlaque, Bashir Mirza, Jamil Naqsh and sculptor Shahid Sajjad. The chapter also covers the significant women artists of the decade, some of whom were just beginning to get recognition.

It may surprise many younger readers to know that PTV was the primary mass portrayer and broadcaster of culture in the seventies. Within the few hours of transmission it could manage in the initial years, PTV broadcast programmes as varied as dramas, satire, music (pop, folk and classical) and dance. While all news broadcasts remained government-dictated, considerable freedom was given to cultural and critical expressions. Government ministers and bureaucrats could be lampooned and significant issues, such as women’s rights, were addressed through plays. PTV’s Khabarnama became a chronicler of the changing times, spouting the words of whoever happened to be in power with incredible zeal. In fact, among the fascinating displays at the exhibition Radioactive Decade was a spool of clips from Khabarnama, including one of General Ziaul Haq declaring martial law on July 5, 1977. Although three writers have contributed to this section, a larger overview is lacking, since out of the three articles, two are interviews (which is the format of the publication).

Theatre in the seventies was not exactly thriving in Pakistan due to the introduction of television but should have received better attention. Karachi’s Theatrical World by Sibtain Naqvi, while thorough in covering the history of theatre in the city, says little about the seventies. However, that caveat apart, the chapter brings into focus the contribution of Karachi’s diverse communities in the promotion of theatre. Gujarati language theatre was tremendously popular at one time and the Parsees played a major role in keeping the tradition alive. The interview with the late Madiha Gauhar shows her political awareness from a young age and a rare commitment that led to the founding of Ajoka, Lahore’s highly respected theatre group.

As far as cinema is concerned, the seventies were The Best of Times, the Worst of Times to borrow the title of the chapter by Khusro Mumtaz. As with other fields of art, cinema, too, suffered as a result of the country’s break-up – losing access to talent as well as a market. However, Mumtaz points to the resilience of Pakistan’s cinema industry that, in the face of setbacks, managed to release 115 films in 1974 – the highest number being in Punjabi, followed by Urdu and other regional languages. This was a decade when Pakistan’s filmmakers were also experimenting with bolder themes. Actor Kamal teamed up with Rangeela to produce a political and social satire, Insaan Aur Gadha, and its box office hit indicated that audiences were ready for stories far removed from the Lollywood formula.

While it is extremely comprehensive in covering all that could be brought together in a single volume, I found Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade to be rather Karachi-centric. Lahore, the country’s other centre of culture (and perhaps richer in its history and heritage) does not quite receive the attention it deserves. In the field of journalism, for example, Lahore was perhaps more vibrant than Karachi. I was, however, pleased to see an editorial by I.H. Burney from Outlook reproduced. Hameed Haroon’s A Decade of Polarization succinctly sums up the decade that was, bookending it with the sixties that preceded it and the eighties lurking in the shadow. All in all, a commendable effort which could have done well with better research and planning.

Zohra Yusuf is Chief Creative Officer, Spectrum VMLY&R.

Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade: An Informal Cultural History of the 1970s
Edited by Niilofur Farrukh, Amin Gulgee and John McCarry
Oxford University Press, Karachi
448pp; Rs 3,500
ISBN: 978-0199405695